It s for kids but not only A Chameleon Concert with Phønix Article by Thorbjørn Sjøgren from the Danish folkmagazine Folk & Musik (Translation: Pernille L. Scharff) It s a Sunday afternoon. The small hall of Toldkammeret in Elsinore, Denmark, is on the first floor above the cafe and the large concert hall. It s the beginning of May, and the weather is of a standard to make us fear having no audience. But voila, shortly before 3 o clock 60-70 people turn up, children and adults among each other, as you say, and during the next hour Phønix create a show which certainly includes the youngest (probably four- or five-year-olds) with excellent explanatory introductions and spectacular handclap demonstrations, but which is certainly also worth listening to for the music alone regardless of your qualifications. The concept is called a Chameleon Concert, where the music is mainly for the children, but where it is also of importance that children and adults have a common experience and Phønix are now on the last legs of a tour where they have played a number of those concerts. The atmosphere is great from the beginning. The few little ones who are a bit insecure quickly become confident, because no-one babytalks in any way. No faking and no sweet-talking, but a real effort to offer them a good listening experience which might be the start of something. Karen Mose Nørgård (vocals), Anja Præst Mikkelsen (bass clarinet), Jesper Vinther Pedersen (accordeon) and Jesper Falch (percussion) at floor level quite literally. Anja: It is important to allow children to listen to folk music. And it s important that it is based on their prerequisites not too much talking between songs or quick changes. Of course, we speak at a children s level, so to say, but not too much. Jesper Falch: In some of the longer songs, such as Tyge Hermansen, we ve cut a few verses, but otherwise we don t change anything. It s not that we adapt the music. A sung story -Many of us have probably experienced children who were obviously bored out of their minds when they were brought to concerts. Perhaps because it was a little late, perhaps because the musicians did not acknowledge their presence in a single word. You might wonder how early children are able to follow a story in a song? Jesper: I think they can fairly early especially if you explain a bit about the storyline and remember that the songs will often contain older words, which need to be explained in modern Danish. But they quickly catch the essence, which is what is important. They don t necessarily need to understand every single world. They should catch the magic energy of the music, and we can see that they do. Anja: They can easily be captured by the story, it s more longer instrumental periods that are the problem. There they need something visual, or perhaps something to clap with or whatever But this is true for many adults as well; they re just better at sitting quietly and hiding it The living tradition - What about changing beats and that sort of thing? Jesper: Well, there children are a much, much more lively audience than adults. They sense with their entire body. Adults use their eyes and their ears, but children are much more easily influenced by the energy we send out. They use their entire body. Anja: I think you can say that where adults listen with their brain, children listen with their hearts. You can really see that they start looking sad if the music becomes a bit sorrowful. And the inverse, if the music is happy, you will see them on the brink of jumping up and dancing... Jesper: And that s the turning point, the essence. That s where Danish folk music can offer something. It is our own cultural heritage. If the transmission is all right, we could call it the form or the framework, then you can reach them and ensure that they bring an experience home with them and are ready to keep on listening, taking music out from the library, and then before you know it they know the story and the songs and can keep up.
Anja: In my music school classes I ve also sung medieval ballads like Dronning Dagmar and then explain the words and ask them how much they understood..what dramas and dead people we ve discussed.. (laughs) Jesper: And that s where folk music becomes just the living tradition it should be. That s our objective, bringing on just that. I teach at the Conservatory of Music myself, and for transmitting, students really have a lot for free when they use Danish songs. - But how do you keep the children interested during long songs? Anja: Well, then you might speak a few verses after singing some, or you just tell some of the story they need variation too. We don t always just sing 20 verses in a row with an adult audience, either. Jesper: And when we play real school concerts, which are also part of LMS activities, we have a folder of preparatory material that is sent out a few weeks before the concert, a compendium that the students can work with. Something musical, something historical and the selje whistles, which we all use, they can make in a crafts class. And we have a competition where they can win our cd. They re very active in this (laughs) Chameleon Concerts - But concerts like these, or even in schools, you don t just play them without any prior arrangements, do you? Jesper: No, you apply to the LMS, and then they come to listen to some of our concerts, and they want press material and all that. Really many ensembles apply, many types of music, and we were one of the ensembles they selected. Then they come to evaluate, and they set you up with a sort of producer for the educational process it s been a real eye-opening process, which we ve also benefited from in our more ordinary concert tours. Now we ve been travelling around, and this is our last job and last year we did a 2-week school concert tour, and we ve been selected to do another set of Chameleon Concerts. LMS sets up the tour itself, and we just need to sign the contract and then show up to do the work. The Swedish sister organisation of LMS, Rikskonserter, have also booked us for a three-week tour in 2005. Then we will introduce Swedish school children to Danish folk music Anja: We think it s so much fun to play for children. The response you get is totally spontaneous and direct. The consultant of children s culture - While the Phønix people wrote autographs for the youngest (I didn t see anyone asking for a signature on their tummies, though) we listened to the story from the users point of view, as told by the consultant of children s culture in Elsinore, Ida Wettendorff. We applied to the LMS to get a number of concerts, normally there are four in a season, but we got in as first-timers and got five. Then the costs are split evenly between LMS and the fund of the consultant of children s culture. And Toldkammeret also has part of it they supply personnel and such. I am the local assistant for all the practial stuff, and next year we will try to involve some parents about the practical running of the concerts. When you re involved, you get the press material and a cd with music from the ensembles of the season. We make a prioritised list with ensembles and dates, and then LMS puts it all together. We wanted our concerts on Sunday afternoons, and it was possible. Then it s up to us to make a sort of season ticket work out, which we ve set up with a slightly higher price for single tickets compared to when you buy for the entire season 40 and 25 DKK per concert, respectively, which we find quite reasonable. And we ve been given space to advertise in the autumn programme of Toldkammeret and sent out information to local children s daycare institutions. I m quite happy with the audience size. Today s 70 listeners made it the least popular of the season, but it was probably the good weather and the Forest Day which took people away. But I look forward to the next season. It s fabulous to experience children as an open audience for music of this quality. Live Music in Schools - You might ask yourself how often this type of concerts would be performed if the money were just between musicians and organisers. So without making it sound like a commercial the role of LMS is quite essential. An independent institutions with 12 years of work behind it, with administration in Århus, and a yearly stipend of just below 1,5 million DKK from the Arts Council, and the function of being a nationwide center for school concerts and the main activities being production, transmission and development of
professional concerts for children and teens in municipalities, counties, schools and concert venues. Ebbe Høyrup, the daily manager of LMS, explains: In relation to the Arts Council we belong to the same family as the Danish Rock Organisation and the Secretariat of Folk Music. - As Phønix members also said, many ensembles want to play this type of concerts. How does one choose? Well, in addition to evaluating music quality, it is important that the ensembles can cross the stage barrier and that they like playing for this age group. I d rather not use the word educational in this context, but. And as for music genre, our regulations ask for a wide range. Of course, there are types of music which the children will probably hear anyway, but we explore a lot with both folk music and jazz and have also tried contemporary classical music. - It s very tempting although polemical to mention DANISH music in this context Well, we don t look so much into where the music emerged. I know that jazz has an American basis, and strictly speaking we have no way of knowing whether part of the Danish folk music has Swedish or German roots, but we see music more as a global language and would find it strange to evaluate those aspects. - What are the possibilities of international cooperation with this type of project? We have a good relationship to similar organisation in the rest of Scandinavia. We meet a few times a year and exchange material. We had a conference in Helsingborg, Sweden, where the Swedes noticed Phønix, and I know that they also have a contact in Belgium and are going there next year. And we ve also had bands from Norway and France, but we may run into language problems. The French ensemble did really well, they did a completely non-verbal show with a lot of mime. But you could say that we have plenty of excellent ensembles at home, it definitely isn t a problem. We ve also felt the budget cuts, so we can t send out as many ensembles as we did a few years ago, and basically the organisers need to pay about half. But I still think we transmit a lot of really good music, regardless of how you want to label it. - At least in the eyes of this writer: an invaluable contrast to the culture of Pop Idol and Next Superstar.