Friday, October 12, 2007

Kulturnatten 2007

Settling into life in Copenhagen, snugly installed in my old room at my parents' apartment.

This evening was Kulturnat (Culture Night), where you run around and check out all kinds of events all over town, rather like a huge version of the Ypsilanti New Year's Jubilee! Thousands of people out on the town... musical groups everywhere... special art and sound installations... torch-lit tours of graveyards... etc., etc. My mother and I saw a group of ruddy-faced, bearded old guys singing shanties! You couldn't help but beam, watching these happy old fellows roaring away.

Saw a couple of "regular" choruses as well, one of which sang a couple of Poulenc's weird little choral pieces based on surrealistic French poems. That was a true treat. And at one point, a chorus surprised its director by singing her the Danish birthday song, which I tend to torture my colleagues with at work... only tonight I learned that there are in fact three verses. Leave it to a chorus to do it right!