HCM CITY — The Gustaf Sjokvist Chamber Choir of Sweden will perform along with Vietnamese artists at the HCM City Opera House on March 2 to celebrate 50 years of diplomatic relations between Sweden and Việt Nam.

The 33-member choir will open the night with a sequence of Swedish contemporary compositions.

The highlighted work will be Forkladd Gud (A God Disguised) suite composed in 1940 by Swedish composer Lars-Erik Larsson to lyrics by Swedish writer and poet Hjalmar Gullberg.

The lyrics are from Gullberg’s collection of poems Kärlek i tjugonde seklet (Love in the 20th Century) from 1933, based on a motif from Greek mythology where the god Apollo appears as a human for a year to serve as a farm labourer for King Admetus in the Greek region of Thessaly.

The composition includes parts for solo soprano and solo baritone, featuring Eva Casserstedt and Ulf Hedbjörk of the choir.

The narration will be translated into Vietnamese and spoken by theatrical director and actor Thái Kim Tùng.

The concert will include extracts from the Vietnamese folk suite Dòng Chảy (The Flow) composed by Trần Mạnh Hùng.

Florian Benfer, the choir’s artistic leader, will conduct the concert. — Photo courtesy of HBSO

The work premiered at Giai Điệu Mùa Thu (Autumn Melody), a biannual festival in HCM City featuring Vietnamese and international classical artists, in 2013, and was welcomed by local and foreign audiences.

The night will end with Ode to Joy from Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in 1824.

The concert will feature the orchestra and chorus from the HCM City Ballet Symphony Orchestra and Opera (HBSO).

It will be conducted by Florian Benfer, the choir’s artistic leader since 2018, and Trần Nhật Minh of HBSO.

The Gustav Sjokvist Chamber Choir was founded by Gustav Sjokvist in Stockholm in 1994. Sjokvist died in 2015. 

The choir specialises in contemporary music, but will also perform works by Bach, Mozart and Brahms.

The concert will begin at 8pm at the Opera House at 7 Lam Sơn Square in District 1. Tickets are available at the venue and at www.ticketbox.vn. — VNS