“Rajaton is our favorite vocal group in the world, actually,” said Morten Vinther of The Real Group during their joint concert in Stockholm last week.
Of course, many people would use the same phrase to describe The Real Group, so you can imagine just how amazing a shared concert would be.
About half of the performance was split between each of the groups singing their own repertoire – with the resting group sitting in a lounge set up on the side of the stage.
The other half featured pieces performed by the groups combined, as the a cappella super-group Level Eleven. Brand new music, as well as some things they’ve been doing together for several years. The five women combined to sing an original “One Finnished Swedish Moment,” and the six men put together a hip arrangement of the Peggy Lee standard “Fever.” They even came up with an epic version of the Trololo song, featuring The Real Group’s marvelous bass, Janis Strazdins.
Of course they closed with the enchanting “Mu Ruoktu Lea Mu Váimmus.” It features a poem in the Sámi language set by Swedish bassist/cellist Svante Henryson (husband of TRG’s Katarina) for the two groups. The Sámi people are a long-marginalized indigenous people of Finland (Rajaton) and Sweden (The Real Group). The words translate roughly to “My home is in my heart / it moves with me.” (It’s published here.)
These two groups are among the best in the world – polished, musically complex, original. They both perform at the maximum difficulty and stick the landing more often than Nadia Comaneci. They work hard and achieve greatness.
The question to ask, then, is why add all the combined music? A typical joint concert like this might featured a couple of combined numbers, but mostly individual sets (consider the great Carmen McRae/Betty Carter duet album). To have as much new and original music as Level Eleven performed must have required heaps of extra rehearsal on top of their usual needs, all for a concert they may not present again for months.
Why add all the combined music? Their sense of tone is different, their musical instincts are distinct; it took careful rehearsal to combine these two groups. And not always successful – sometimes vowel placement was so different as to affect the tuning of the ensemble. (something you don’t hear the individual groups suffer from).
Why add all the combined music? Because artists stretch. Not everything worked perfectly, but it stretched these eleven remarkable singers in new directions, to create music that didn’t sound exactly like either group. They experimented in public.
All great artists push beyond their comfort zone, to see what’s out there and to follow any good leads that come from the stretch.
We are all blessed that The Real Group and Rajaton, Level Eleven, were willing to stretch their artistry and share it with all of us.
The livestream of their Stockholm concert is archived and available for viewing. I can’t urge you strongly enough to watch and experience these two amazing groups, stretching together and making great art.
Truly the best in the world.