Or, St(ock)h(o)lm.
Right off the bat, it’s clear that the Fête de la Musique in the Swedish capital is a hip affair. Make Music STHLM falls somewhere between that classic Scandinavian allure – chic, effortless, avant-garde – and the innate flair and flourish of French Cultural Attaché to Stockholm Alice Lebredonchel, and there’s something about this duality that makes the Fête in Stockholm work. This theme of two – everything in our talk seemed to come in pairs – has taken an uncanny hold of the STHLM festival story, beginning with the fact that 2011 marks festival … two.
I caught up with Alice, who is there on a two-year contract, on Skype. She’s the spark behind Make Music STHLM, and her perspective – as both a newcomer to Sweden, and as a French employee working on what is becoming a Swedish thing – makes for an interesting take on the Fête, especially when I learned that this year, Make Music STHLM will be held not on June 21st, but two weeks earlier, on June 6th.
Why June 6th? Apparently, it wasn’t a random choice. First, June 21st is dangerously close to the Swedish holiday of midsommer, celebrated annually on the third Friday in the month. The day is sacred in Sweden, and marks the beginning of summer holidays. By the 21st, most of Stockholm has left for the country (As Alice put it, “the streets are empty, really creepy atmosphere, actually.”) Second, June 6th – National Day – has been newly anointed a ‘Red Day,’ or public holiday, and the nation has the day off, but according to Alice, people “don’t have anything special to do. There is no tradition…yet!” Thus, when Alice met with the city of Stockholm, they all agreed “that it would be a great opportunity to put [the festival] on [June 6] and include it – and thus have their support on organization – in the cultural festivities they have this day.”
Interesting: a French concept celebrated on Sweden’s national day. When I asked Alice my favorite question about the role of place in the festival, and about how Make Music STHLM manages to stay true to the idea of the Fête while working within a Swedish context, she said: “there are two answers to that. Of course it’s promoting Swedish music. But what we are doing as well is we’re going to have a closing party at the end with French artists. In most of the countries [where the Fête is celebrated], it has been the French institutes and embassies who started the conversation with local organizations. They’re always there at the beginning of the project. In the first years, even though it’s about local music, it’s really about promoting a concept that comes from France.” Still, Alice continued, there’s a second part to the founders’ story: “at some point the project will be so successful it will grow by itself and be taken over by another [local] institution.”
“You really have to take into account the city you are living in” said Alice, echoing what I’ve been hearing again and again. “It’s more about the concept than the date. We’ll see how it goes this year, but I think the nice opportunity about putting it on the national day is making it something that happens every year.”
Make Music STHLM started in 2010, when a group of teachers at a French high school in the capital approached the French Embassy about hosting a small version of the Fête in their school. Alice, new to Stockholm and her position, jumped at the opportunity to take the festival city-wide. Despite the short turn-around and having to play catch-up on Swedish traditions, the first festival was a success, with some 40 bands playing in a dozen locations around town.
Three Green Trees play at Normalmstorg (photo by Rachel Daucé)
This year, things are looking even more promising. “I should point out first that we improved so much [this year]” said Alice. “Last year we didn’t really infiltrate the good networks. This year, we have a lot a lot of rock bands – but it’s always like this – orchestras, brass bands, choirs, some jazz bands. Every kind of music. And DJs. We received so many DJ applications, it’s crazy, I don’t know why.”
“I think its going to be between 40 and 45 places, which is four times what we did last year, so it’s really great. We have so many different kinds of places – museums, bars, cafés, shops, hospitals, an old people’s home, churches. And the city will build stages in the center of the city, which is great exposure as well. It’s the first time we do it this way with partner spaces. it will be interesting to see what they think of it.”
Apart from lining up with a national holiday, what is it about Sweden, and Stockholm, that makes the festival work? Alice had, again, two answers. First, that music is integral to Swedish life, as evidenced not only by the number of active musicians in Stockholm, but also by the support they have (there must be a reason, after all, why my flutist friend left New York for Malmö.) “There is a huge culture of education outside of school in Sweden. You can learn anything as an adult here, you name it. The biggest thing they have is music classes. And they have this counseling program – it’s crazy, I’ve never seen something like it. They have bands registered, and [each band] gets a personal counselor for free, who tells them this week you should do this, and next week you can do that. So we reached out to them, because they have so many people registered.”
Second, that the city has a tradition of outdoor summer festivals, which makes Make Music STHLM an easy fit. “The thing is in Sweden it’s so hard in the winter that when the summer comes, as soon as the sun is out – and you know we only have like 3 or 4 hours of darkness in the summer – people are in the parks all the time. I’ve never seen this anywhere else. They’re really trying to spend the most time they can outside in the nice season, which is only three months. It’s really a special time in June. There are so many festivals. I end the summer so exhausted!”
I once spent a midsummer week on a boat in the Stockholm harbor, fascinated by the sky. When Alice says it’s unlike anywhere else, she’s right. There truly is something special about Scandinavia in the summertime and its the endless, energizing sun. So, does the Fête go all night? Unfortunately, no. “This year we will start at noon, and we think we’ll stop outdoor music at 10 or 11, and then an after party until 1. It’s a Monday so we can’t finish too late.”
Alice is an old hand at the Fête. Like most French, she’s seen her share of the festival, and can speak to its uniqueness. Her first experience with it was in her hometown of Caen, in Normandy. “I was maybe 15 or 16 when my parents let me go for the first time by myself”, she laughed. “The main difference in France is that nobody is behind it. You know it’s so much work for New York and for myself in Stockholm but in France people might decide that afternoon, ‘ok let’s play tonight and let’s take our things and just play on the streets.’ They don’t ask for authorizations and because everyone knows it’s on this day the police don’t care. It’s really different. It’s less organized in a way, so you don’t know what you’re going to see or what you can expect. You get a lot of nice surprises in France.” That sense of spontaneity is something that I envy from my post here in NYC, but as Alice pointed out, “the nice thing about how it is done abroad is that there’s a program so if you want to listen to something particular you can.” (She’s even seen MMNY, in 2008, when she was in NYC interning at MOCADA).
But back to the hipness. Alice is bringing the festival into the 21st century with some fabulous technological accessories. To be honest, I’m surprised other festivals haven’t followed suite. First up, as expected, is an iPhone app. “It’s not that fancy”, Alice insisted, “it’s a link to our website, Facebook and Twitter, and a Google map with all the places and the program, and a questionnaire. Oh and a link to our YouTube channel. It’s going to be a really cool way for people to walk around and see the festival.” And for those with non-Apple smart phones, Alice has something for them, too: “we have posters at the venues and throughout the city, and there will be a QR code on the poster which will link to the Google map with all the places and times.”
Brent plays at Kungstragarden (photo by Rachel Daucé)
Other than new technologies, I asked Alice what her favorite moments had been thus far, and what she was looking forward to. Her favorite moment from the first festival, she said, “was when the music started. At the beginning we had this huge rain for forty minutes and then it stopped and the sky was blue. When the music started, it was very emotionally strong because it’s so much work.” For this year, she’s looking forward to a Symphony for a Harbor, by “this English guy named Robin. You know we have two harbors in Stockholm, and we have boats that do cruises in the archipelago. [Robin] managed to convince these boats to let him be an orchestra manager and to use their horns on the boats, and he’s going to do a concert with the horns of the boats. It’s an amazing project.” Sounds pretty incredible (and amusing, with even Stockholm’s geography falling into our “two” theme).
Maybe it’s because we’re close in age (an assumption based on our kindred choices for casual wear and outdoor locations for our Skype interview), but halfway through our conversation I started making a mental note of the friends I have within the city’s vicinity, to urge them to participate in STHLM 2011. Alice is only in Stockholm through the end of this year. She’s not sure where she’s going next, but before she leaves she’ll ensure that Make Music STHLM continues. And from the hour we spent together, I’m sure it will be fabulous. Emails encouraging said Stockholm-area friends were sent as soon as we hung up. By then I shouldn’t have been surprised, but honestly, it turns out there are only two of them.
