What a Wonderful World – with Cantemus

The Cantemus choir and four eighth-grade classes from Adolf Fredrik’s Music School – for a total of 400 singers – along with guest artists and musicians shine a light on the marvellous beauty of the world we live in. Selections from Haydn’s “The Creation” frame songs from different eras. Each day of creation is illustrated with one or more movements from Haydn’s oratorio, and then juxtaposed against music from our own era.

Can we do this? Yes, we think that Joseph Haydn would say: “I did that myself – as did all of my dear colleagues in the world of music, from Bach and Handel to Mozart!”

Some of Sweden’s leading, beloved artists also participate. One of the most prominent is Malena Ernman, whose CV includes everything from guest performances and leading roles on the world’s opera stages, to placement in the finals of the Eurovision Song Contest 2009. We also hear Anders Larsson, who has sung the major baritone roles on all of Sweden’s and many international opera stages. Martin Åsander sang the tenor part in Mozart’s Coronation Mass when Cantemus celebrated its twenty-year anniversary in 2019.

Since 1999, Cantemus has served as an “academy of choral singing” and gathers choral singers of all ages at various levels of experience. This is also Sweden’s biggest classic “big choir” and has had over 800 singers at the most. The choir currently has 300 singers who have returned after the pandemic.

Cantemus’ repertoire includes the major classics: Mozart’s Requiem, Handel’s Messiah, Vivaldi’s Gloria and Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana, among so much more. The choir also sings new arrangements of songs by ABBA, The Beatles, Elvis, Sinatra, Simon & Garfunkel, Ted Gärdestad, Queen and many more. Artists who have performed with the choir include Jan Malmsjö, Sanna Nielsen, Sarah Dawn Finer, Lisa Nilsson and Sven Bertil Taube.

Adolf Fredrik’s Music School is a specialised school with a focus on choral singing. Music is part of all operations at the school and all students participate in active and outward-oriented concert activities. With music as a language and choral singing as a method, Adolf Fredrik’s Music School educates choral singers for tomorrow’s Swedish choirs. Around 120 students from four eighth-grade classes are participating in this concert, singing their own songs as well as songs together with Cantemus.

Welcome to this musical tribute to our beautiful yet fragile world.