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Review: 'KOM A SJUNG'
'London, Marylebone, Swedish Church, 27 June'   


-  Genre: 'Folk'

Our Rating:
This is only the third live performance by Kom A Sjung. You've never heard of them you say? Well, they are a Swedish Choir based at the Swedish Church in Marylebone and as you'd expect in London not all the members of the choir are Swedish. Currently the choir has 9 singers 7 of whom are women.

We had a good seat a couple of pews in front of the vicar (or is he a priest?) and I got to have a nice look round this reasonably austere church while listening to the choir who opened the concert after the church bells tolled with some nice harmony singing. They reminded me a bit of Guds Speleman a song I know by Garmana that worked nicely as the voices filled the church and made everyone relax so much that one of my friends in the choir forgot the actual name of the song.

The English title of the second song was Grant Me The Serenity of Sinnesrobonen - it marked the first time the choir mistress sat at the piano to accompany them as the mellifluous voices certainly made me feel nice and serene.

They confused everyone by singing in English and doing a very pretty version of Somewhere from West Side Story that thankfully sounded nothing like Barbra Streisand's version, but the harmonies worked really nicely on it.

They then split the choir into two halves for Bred Dina Vida Vingar with the split harmonies adding another dimension to how the voices intertwined with each other. This sounded as if they were trying to reach a nice peaceful conclusion.

It was then time for an evening Hymn so they sang Let Us Praise The Lord in English, which allowed some of the audience to sing along with it as they made their first attempt to sing using 3 part harmonies and I have to say they pulled it off pretty well.

We then got a Swedish English medley of Mot Mig Nu som Den Jag Ar that led into I Min Gud that eventually slipped into Hallelujah and as the medley progressed the choir seemed to be doing everything they could to make the transitions as smooth as possible. They did a pretty good job of it.

The Way You Are featured a solo by Cicci before the rest of the choir joined in to fill out the sound and emotions nicely. I know Give It To Me sounded familiar but I'm not sure who did the original, but I don't think it was the J Geils Band song.

They closed with a song that stole the melody from old Man River but was actually the Swedish song Sol, Vind Och Vatten and it featured some really nice harmonies as well as some nice piano parts to finish of a nice relaxing concert in a very pleasant church.

They may not be ready for the Swedish equivalent of an Eisteddfod just yet but give this choir a couple of years and they will really be on song.
  author: simonovitch

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