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COLUMBIA SWEDISH PROGRAM SPONSORS FALL
2003 PROGRAMS ON SWEDISH-AMERICAN POLITICS, MODERN SCANDINAVIAN LEGENDS, AND SWEDISH LOVE SONGS |
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The Swedish Program at Columbia University has announced its fall 2003 roster of Scandinavian cultural activities including talks in English by a political journalist and a folklorist/poet from Sweden, as well as an evening of music by a talented young Swedish singer. These events are scheduled on Tuesday evenings from September 23 through November 18 at Deutsches Haus, the cultural center for the Department of Germanic Languages at Columbia. Deutsches Haus is located at 420 W. 116th Street, New York City (between Amsterdam Avenue and Morningside Drive on the Columbia campus). The public is invited, and admission is free to all these events. |
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| The first talk, at 7 p.m., Tuesday, September 23, will be by Swedish political journalist Per T. Ohlsson. editor-in-chief of the independent-liberal newspaper Sydsvenska Dagbladet, Sweden’s fourth largest subscription daily. The title of his talk is “Close Friends and Distant: Relations Between the United States and Sweden over 200 Years.” | ||
| Since 1990 Per T. Ohlsson has served as editor-in-chief of the Malmö-based paper, for which he writes a weekly column. He is a frequent commentator on U.S. affairs on Swedish radio and TV and was the U.S. correspondent for Sydsvenskan from1985 to 1988. Among the books he has published are a volume on U.S.-European relations entitled Over There: Banden över Atlanten (Over There: The Ties Across the Atlantic,1992) and a biography of 19th-century Swedish statesman J. A. Gripenstedt (100 år av tillväxt, 100 Years of Growth, 1994). The political analysis of Per T. Ohlsson has proved especially useful this year with the deepening divisions of opinion in Europe and America. | ||
| This talk is being sponsored by the Swedish Program of Columbia University in cooperation with the American-Scandinavian Foundation. | ||
| The second event on the Swedish Program’s fall roster is a talk in English entitled “Legends of Modern-Day Scandinavia,” by Swedish ethnologist, folklorist and poet Bengt af Klintberg. This program will commence at 7 p.m., on Tuesday, October 21, also at Deutsches Haus, on the Columbia campus, and will be sponsored by the Swedish Program of Columbia University with the assistance of the American-Scandinavian Foundation. | ||
| Bengt af Klintberg is a professor of ethnology at the University of Uppsala and the author of six collections of poetry and short stories, seventeen books on folklore and poetry, and six books for children as well as some sixty articles on Swedish and German folklore. He has done more than 1,500 radio programs and more than 200 television programs on folklore and poetry and been awarded many literary prizes. He will be the keynote speaker at this year’s national workshop for Swedish teachers in Seattle, Washington. Many readers on Swedish culture are familiar with his book Råttan I pizzan (The Rat in the Pizza), about urban legends in Sweden today. | ||
| The third fall event to be sponsored by Columbia’s Swedish Program is entitled “Swedish Songs of Love and Loss,” a musical evening with Swedish mezzo soprano Malin Serner and friends, featuring songs by classical composers Wilhelm Peterson-Berger, Sigurd von Koch, and Wilhelm Stenhammar The program is scheduled for 7 pm on Tuesday, November 18 at Deutsches Haus. | ||
| Malin Serner has appeared with the Royal Dramatic Opera and AdolfFredrik Opera in Sweden; the Des Moines (Iowa) Metro Opera; the Natchez (Mississippi) Opera; the Dicapo Opera, the Opera Orchestra, the Swedish Church, the Brooklyn College Opera Theatre, and Opera on the Go, all in New York City. | ||
| She will be accompanied by Stockholm pianist Michael Engström, who has worked as an accompanist for the Swedish Radio Choir under Eric Ericson and also for the world-renowned Swedish soprano, Katarina Dalayman. | ||
| Joining Malin Serner in various songs will be two friends: soprano Helen Larson and tenor Tam Johnson. Ms. Larsson sings and teacher music in Stockholm, has worked extensively in Spain, and has been invited to India to develop an exchange program there for young students. | ||
| Tam Johnson has performed with a variety of New York City choral ensembles including the New York Choral Artists, the Canterbury Choral Society, and the National Chorale. Recently he appeared with this city’s highly acclaimed Ensemble For Early Music in its production of Daniel and the Lion, which enjoyed a three-week run to much praise in Spoleto, Italy. | ||
| This musical evening will be sponsored by the Swedish Program in cooperation with the American-Scandinavian Foundation. | ||
| For further information about these three talks or about Swedish language courses at Columbia, contact Verne Moberg: Tel.: 212-854-4015; E-mail: [email protected] | ||
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