The Vasa Drängar choir turns 30

The Atlanta based men's chorus will give a concert at the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer in mid-August. Two soloists, among Sweden’s best opera singers, Niklas Björling Rygert and Marcus Jupither will sing songs from La Boheme and Tosca.

A recent photo of Vasa Drängar. From left to right: Erik Kind, Jay Lutz, Sven Lovegren, Magnus Edlund, Peter Quist, Göran Rygert, Sten Ekberg, Andrew Hershman and Bob Johnson. Missing on this photo are Nathaniel Sundholm, Adrian Popescu and our new conductor Paula Fagerberg.
In the spring of 1996, a few guys and I, members of the Nordic Lodge in Atlanta, found out that among us we had enough people to create a men’s double chorus. We got together and started practicing. It sounded promising, so we offered our services to the Nordic Lodge. They gave us our first gig: The annual crawfish dinner in September. We called ourselves “The Vikings,” and our singing went well. We got applause enough to encourage us to continue.
And so we have, now for 30 years and counting! We renamed ourselves just a year later, to “Vasa Drängar” which means Vasa Farmhands - of course inspired by the famous Swedish men’s chorus Orphei Drängar in Uppsala.
Thirty years! Only two of us founding members still sing with the group, but it’s all worth celebrating. We decided to do that by giving a concert, with old and new songs we love and with soloists from Sweden. Our concert is on Saturday, August 15 at the beautiful Lutheran Church of the Redeemer, located on Peachtree Street in Atlanta’s Midtown.
We have invited two of Sweden’s best opera singers, Niklas Björling Rygert and Marcus Jupither. They will sing songs from La Boheme and Tosca, and more!
Niklas is a graduate of the University of Opera in Stockholm. He is Sweden’s leading character tenor. He did his opera debut in 1994 and has been a member of the soloists’ ensemble at the Royal Opera in Stockholm since 1999. There he has sung over 50 roles in more than one thousand performances. For his Mime in Siegfried in 2006, he won the Opera Magazine’s prestigious Opera Prize, earning more international attention. Niklas’s daughter Kerstin Linden, 18, is an actress, who among several other movies played Ronja in Astrid Lindgren’s Ronja Rövardotter.
Marcus is one of Sweden’s foremost engaged singers of today with a repertoire of over 60 parts. He studied at the Royal University of Music and at the Opera Academy. He made his opera debt in 1995. Since then he has performed at all major Swedish opera houses and around the world. Marcus’ father, Rolf Jupither, was also an opera singer, at the Royal Opera in Stockholm. He was especially recognized for the role of Scarpia in Tosca – which now his son is mastering.
Preparations for the August 15 concert are going at full blast. It will be accompanied by Andrew Fazackerley on the piano and his musicians on double-bass and percussion. Get your tickets at www.vasadrangar.com!
Göran Rygert