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Beautiful Stockholm ...

Wednesday, May 25 th

By Derek Lance

 

After a late night on Tuesday ("Pretzel Night"), the 7:20 a.m. departure time from my billet was entirely too early. Those of us who had billets in Sodertalje drove to Stockholm to meet the remainder of the band at the Stockholm Temple Corps, where our concert would be held this evening. The Temple Corps building was quite old, built in 1887, which coincidentally is the same year that the NYSB was created. We were impressed to find out that William Booth spoke here on several occasions.

 

Our day in Stockholm began with a bus tour of the city, which was supposed to commence at 9:15 a.m. , but was delayed in order to accommodate a certain bandmaster and chorus leader (did they sleep in?). Our tour guide led us around the city and provided us with some very interesting facts about Stockholm . Apparently Stockholm is one of the three most beautiful cities in the world along with Sydney and San Francisco . I would have to agree. Also, the tour guide told us that Stockholm is one-third water, except with her accent the "h" appeared to be missing. We were amazed. Stockholm is in fact a beautiful city, filled with cobblestone streets, waterways and buildings that reflect its hundreds of years of history.

 

Special recognition has to go to our amazing bus driver, "Bo." On the way to our concert in Stockholm , Bo had to back through cars on either side (he probably had less than 6 inches on either side). It was the most impressive thing that I had seen in my life. I probably couldn't get my Honda CR-V through this same space. We are very lucky to have Bo as our driver!!!!

 

At noon we had a concert in an outdoor pavilion located in the center of Stockholm . I was surprised to see how many people came out for this program. There must have been 300 people gathered in the square to hear us play. The band started with the march "Victors Acclaimed" and quickly moved onto an arrangement of "Deep and Wide." Following this, Jeff Barrington gave a beautiful performance of Christopher Cole's "The Reason." Other items included "The Pearl," "Stand up for Jesus," "Cairo Red Shield," "Mid all the Traffic," "Amazing Grace" and "Rosehill." The band played well under Gordon Ward's leadership and was received well by the large crowd.

Following our concert in the square, we went for lunch at a large department store. There were many dining options including pasta, a vegetarian buffet and a taco buffet. As you can see, I took full advantage of the taco buffet.

 

We then had a few hours to look around the city. There is never enough time on these tours to see all of the sights. Most of the time was spent looking for souvenirs and items to take home to our loved ones. Luckily for me, my wife is here, so I can spend my time just wandering around and my money on snacks. Hopefully some day I can come back again and fully enjoy this beautiful city. I am sure most of the other bandsmen would agree.

 

We gathered back at the Temple Corps to set up and have a quick sound check for the night's program. It was very nice to have our good friend, Ted Marshall, here with us. He will be recording the remainder of the concerts on this tour so that we can release a live CD from our visit to Scandinavia .

 

Following the brief sound check, we ate..again! For our meal we were joined by Jim (or John if you ask Lt. Col. Reynders) Taylor from the American Embassy and his wife, as well as the territorial commanders, Commissioners Hasse & Christina Kjellgren. We were all impressed by Commissioner Kjellgren's memory of past visits of the Staff Band. He gave a shout out to Ron Waiksnoris and Gordon Ward for their masterful performance of "Quicksilver" in 1982.

 

This concert had a very different start than previous ones. We were marched in by the Divisional Junior Band, 25 kids from several different corps. It was very nice to see and hear them, and it was a great start to the evening's program. The concert began with Dorothy Gates' piece "All Glorious" and was followed quickly by the march "The Seafarer" written by Norman Bearcroft. Following an introduction from Territorial Music Director, Lars-Otto Ljungholm, the band played "Music for a Joyful Occasion." I had the opportunity to play Erik Leidzen's cornet solo, "Wondrous Day." It turns out that Erik Leidzen attended this corps for some time, so that made the experience more meaningful for me. Following this, Gordon Ward, Chris Ward and Jeff Barrington gave a very fine performance of "The Heralds." We concluded the first half of our program with "Victorian Snapshots - On Ratcliff Highway." You never can tell how an audience will react to this piece but this audience seemed excited about the opportunity to hear it.

We started the second half with "Under the Blue and Yellow Flag" and were then joined by Torgny Hanson who led us through Erik Leidzen's "Second Swedish Rhapsody." To say the least, this wasn't our best performance, but we felt privileged to play under our guest conductor's leadership. Torgny is an amazing conductor and really knows how to draw the music out of a band. If only he could teach us how to count as well!!!!!! Burt Mason and Dorothy Gates played "When Jesus" and once again Aaron VanderWeele played "Air N' Variations." Following this our translator, Bjarne Solvang, a Norwegian translating our English into Swedish, accidentally introduced us as the male "Cows" instead of the male "Chorus." (oops.appropriate perhaps.). We completed our concert with "The Last Amen," which was a followed by a standing ovation from the appreciative crowd. This was a great night and a spectacular day in Beautiful Stockholm.