Year 5’s melodious performance at London Southbank

On Sunday October 1st Year 5 had the opportunity to perform joiking (Nordic singing) alongside a professional choir at London’s Southbank Centre. The Southbank Centre was celebrating Nordic Arts. Hence Year 5 were trained by professional Nordic singers who came from the Sápmi country in the Netherlands, Sápmi is a small country, which is grid locked by the borders of Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia.

One of the singers Jordgen who trained our Year 5 class was a real reindeer herder! The other singer Cecilia also came from Sápmi and lives up the mountains with a population of only 2000 people in the whole area! Additionally Jordgen lives in a village where there are only nine families!

The experience at the Southbank Centre was great fun and simply exciting! We got to go backstage and see how real artists and composers operate. The musical piece that we sang was composed by a famous conductor Lotta who led the performance. Our class sang three different joiks (Nordic songs) which each had a story behind them. Joiking is the art of singing without actual words but uses sound to express our feelings and emotions. A joik can be adapted according to your mood and to whom you sing too! For example animals, mountains or rivers! The professional singers also expressed to us how a joik can change the mood of an animal, for example the reindeer herder always joiks to his reindeers, which changes the speed of how fast or slow the reindeer moves!

Overall we thoroughly enjoyed performing to the public in London town at the great Southbank Centre. We go to perform three times from 11.30am-1.45pm. We can officially say that Year 5 now know this traditional form of Nordic joiking! Year 5 is grateful to the teachers and professionals who organised this performance!

Written by:

Prisha Vyas and Aniyora Kang.