Song Festival Grounds, Tallinn, Estonia, July 4, 2009 (photo by Ants Liigus of Pärnu Postimees)
Singing is powerful. It can help topple empires.
A group from Cincinnati got a taste of that in July when they attended the National Song Celebration in Tallinn, Estonia.
“If we had sent them on the Crusades, they would have taken back the Holy Land,” said Indian Hill resident John Palmer as he left the opening concert July 4 in the huge Song Festival amphitheater at the edge of the Baltic Sea in Tallinn.
Palmer’s comment was on target. Estonia, population 1.3 million, broke free of Soviet Union occupation in 1991 after a bloodless, “Singing Revolution,” waged through public demonstrations of song (see the 2006 film “The Singing Revolution” for more on this inspiring topic). Held every five years, the National Song Celebration (laulupidu) has been the focus of Estonia’s national identity for 140 years.
Cincinnati visitors with Paavo Järvi L to R: Nick Tsimaras, Peter Courlas, Melody Sawyer Richardson, Järvi, Vicky Motch, David Motch, Farah Palmer, John Palmer, Jody Veith (ME Hutton)
Palmer, his wife Farah and eight other Cincinnatians traveled to Tallinn in July to attend the Song Celebration and to learn more about Cincinnati Symphony music director Paavo Järvi’s homeland. Traveling with them were Peter Courlas and Nick Tsimaras (East End), Vicky and David Motch (Pierce Township), Melody Sawyer Richardson (Hyde Park), Joan Rieveschl (Mount Adams) and Jody Veith (Hyde Park). None had ever been to Estonia.
Dancers at Kalev Stadium in Tallinn, July 3, 2009 (ME Hutton)
On July 3, the group attended the concurrent National Dance Celebration, a kind of gigantic half-time event with 7,460 dancers and gymnasts stepping in time in Kalev Stadium in Tallinn.
view of Tallinn's Old City from overlook at Toompea (ME Hutton)
There was plenty of sightseeing, too, on the week-long tour, including Tallinn’s medieval Old Town, Russian Czar Peter the Great’s summer palace,
Palace of Russian Czar Peter the Great, Tallinn, Estonia (ME Hutton)
Patarei Prison (infamous during the Soviet occupation) and the spectacular new Kumu Museum of Estonian art.
lunch at Old Hansa, Old Town, Tallinn (bottom right, David Motch, Joan Rieveschl) (ME Hutton)
They ate at Olde Hansa in the Old Town (foods available in the Middle Ages only) and “Estonian New Cuisine” (whitefish, caviar, duck breast) at Restaurant Vertigo in a modern high-rise overlooking the city. They made a one-day side trip to Tartu, Estonia’s university town, where the first laulupidu took place in 1869.
At sunset July 2 -- near 11 p.m. mid-summer – the travelers witnessed the arrival of the Flame after its three-week journey from Tartu. On July 4, they watched the bearer of the Flame lead a procession to the Song Festival grounds for the first concert.
Choir from the USA in Song Celebration parade July 4, 2009 (ME Hutton)
The procession lasted five hours, with flags, marching bands and choristers in colorful national costumes.
Chorus members filling the Song Festival amphitheater (ME Hutton)
A mass choir of 24,705 opened the concert with the traditional “Koit” (“Dawn”) and five other selections, astonishing the ear with the clarity and precision of their singing. “How do they get 30,000 singers from all over the country to sing the same song in tune at the same time?” marveled Richardson.
Massed choirs performing July 4, 2009, Ants Soots conductor (ME Hutton)
Groups of between 200 and 3,000 singers followed, both a capella and accompanied, in selections by Estonian and Western composers, including Beethoven, Britten, Arvo Pärt and Carl Orff (“Carmina Burana”).
“It wasn’t just the incredible number of musicians, it was the incredible beauty of their voices that we will remember,” said travel consultant Vicky Motch, who arranged the tour.
Paavo Järvi conducting in the rain (ME Hutton)
It was near midnight and raining steadily when Järvi, in ascot and tux, ascended the podium to lead 446 men’s voices and the Estonian National Orchestra in a stirring “Pilgrim’s Chorus” from Wagner’s “Tannhäuser.”
“The fact that our group was sitting in the cold in pouring rain and never even thought of leaving attests to how incredible the event was,” said Veith.
Choirs of all levels, including toddlers, performed traditional and popular Estonian music July 5, with the massed choir returning for “Tuljak“ (their "Hava Nagila," said Richardson) and a concluding patriotic set that produced a sea of Estonian blue-black-and-white flags.
In all, 864 choirs led by 57 conductors took part in the two concerts (about eight hours of singing).
Striking the Estonian colors at the Song Festival Grounds (ME Hutton)
"I loved how proud the people were of Estonia and their heritage." Said Richardson. "We could take a lesson from them!"
Their expressions of nationalism conveyed no sense of feeling "better than anyone," stressed Courlas. "What I saw was, 'We have pride in ourselves, and we need to express that though our music.'"
"The trip exceeded all expectations," said Rieveschl, who organized Cincinnati’s Saengerfest Bicentennial Celebration in 1988. "Boy, did you miss it," she enthuses, "but, of course, you can go in another five years (2014)."
Järvi told Agence France-Presse: "The Estonian song festival tradition is unique in the world, something that makes us feel a proud and great nation through our cultural heritage despite having a tiny population."
With 37,000 singers, dancers and musicians and 153,900 tickets sold, turnout for the 2009 Song and Dance Celebrations equaled 14.6 percent of the population, the highest figure since the end of the "Singing Revolution" (1991). Per capita, that would be nearly 318,000 in Greater Cincinnati and 42.6 million in the U.S. as a whole.
(first published in Express Cincinnati, September 2009)
