Do you want to be a part of our exciting future?
We are mainly looking for tenors and basses but welcome applicants in all voices. Read more and register your interest here by August 26.
Admission takes place on September 1.
Updated 23 December: The number of tickets for the New Year's Concert is limited to 500. According to the Public Health Agency of Sweden's restrictions from 23 December for events with between 20 and 500 participants, everyone over the age of 18 must present a valid vaccination certificate and ID at the entrance. Please have your ticket, vaccine certificate, and ID ready at the entrance to speed up the process.
We expect all visitors with cold symptoms to stay at home, according to the current recommendations, and are grateful for your cooperation. It will unfortunately not be possible to redeem purchased tickets.
Vaccination certificates can be ordered from the eHealth Authority.
The autumn semester is about to begin, and with it the rehearsals with the Academy Chamber Choir of Uppsala. It is still uncertain when it will be possible to perform in concert again, due to COVID-19, but our ambition is to do it as soon as the situation permits. The choir is looking for singers for all voice parts, especially bass! Please fill in this form if you are interested in singing with us.
Uppsala Akademiska Kammarkör (UAK) has had four permanent conductors since its inception in 1957, each of which has put their own mark on the choir: Eric Ericson, Dan-Olof Stenlund, Anders Eby and since 1983 Stefan Parkman. We are now looking for a new conductor starting in the fall of 2022, someone who wants to write the next chapter in the history of the choir together with us.
We are looking for someone who, like us, loves the choral singing as an art form with its rich and diverse expressive possibilities. You have the experience and ability to lead an ambitious amateur choir, a broad repertoire knowledge in historical and contemporary choral music, the technical skills to rehearse and perform advanced choral music, and experience with working with soloists and orchestras.
During the spring of 2022, one or two candidates will get the opportunity to lead a concert project for an a cappella concert with approximately ten weeks of rehearsal time.
Had this been a normal year, preparations for the New Year's concert would have been in full swing. Dress rehearsal with choir, orchestra, and soloists. Arrangements for tickets, flowers, canapés and sparkling wine, stage lighting, and plenty of other things. All preparations for a grand musical experience, framed by the special atmosphere of the university auditorium.
But unfortunately, this will not be the case in 2021. The tradition is suspended for the first time since 1984. It is not possible to conduct the concert due to the current COVID-19 guidelines.
We wish our dear audience and fellow musicians a happy new year in this way instead: Put on your favorite record with UAK at high volume. Pour a glass of something sparkling and think about future concerts! We hope to see you again soon.
Happy New Year!
The Düben collection at the university library Carolina Rediviva in Uppsala is a real treasure. Gustav Düben held the position of court musician at the Swedish court between 1663 and 1690 and was a frequent visitor to Lübeck, where he socialized with the leading musicians Franz Tunder and Dietrich Buxtehude, both organists in St. Mary's Church. After Gustav Düben's death, the music collection was donated to Carolina Rediviva. Tunder and Buxtehude's organ music has been preserved in several places, but their vocal music exists in principle only in the form of the manuscript copies that Gustav Düben made or had made.
For this recording, a program was selected with the intention to recreate a soundscape from St. Mary's Church in the 17th century, parts of which could also be heard in Stockholm at the Royal Court and the German Church. All music is related to St. Mary's Church and the selection has been made by musicologist and Düben expert Kerala J. Snyder. Several of the works come from the Düben collection and some are world premiere recordings, including works by Paolo Quagliati (1555-1628) and Simone Vesi (active 1638-1667).
The program was performed for the first time at the European Day of Early Music, 21 March 2017, when UAK together with soloists from WDR Rundfunkchor Köln and the newly formed ensemble Uppsala Consort gave a concert in the German Church in Stockholm. The concert was broadcast on Swedish radio P2 and large parts of Europe through the EBU. A concert was also given in Uppsala Cathedral.
In September 2017, UAK, the soloist ensemble and Uppsala Consort went on tour with the program to the Baroque music festival Lübecker Buxtehude Tage, as well as to Greifswald and Hamburg. To our great delight the story did not end there, but in September 2019 the program was recorded in Bälinge church outside Uppsala. A recording that is now finalized and ready to enjoy thanks to conductor Stefan Parkman, producer Gunnar Andersson and recording technician Per Sjösten from Footprint Records.
Dagens Nyheter wrote on September 13, 2020: "Here the Academy Chamber Choir of Uppsala and the Uppsala Consort under the direction of Stefan Parkman excel in music by Schütz, Tunder, Buxtehude, Vesi and Quagliati which in its vibrant beauty conveys the sensation of how all the horrors of the /thirty-year/ war have faded away like morning stars."
The Academy Chamber Choir of Uppsala resumes its rehearsal work, which has been on hold since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in the spring. In order for the rehearsals to be carried out safely, adaptations such as rehearsing in smaller constellations are made. The choir is also looking for singers! Please fill in the registration form if you are interested to join UAK. We are looking for first-basses in particular.
The Academy Chamber Choir of Uppsala gathers on the steps of the University Building to welcome spring. We also took the opportunity to send a greeting to our good friend Maggie Brooks, who is retiring from her professorship at Yale University.
We regret to inform that the entire peace concert project in Germany and Sweden must be canceled, as the restrictions and uncertainty make it impossible to realise the project as intended. Our ambition is to postpone the project to a later occasion, likely during 2021. We are currently reviewing the options to make this happen, but the decision will have to wait until the pandemic situation has stabilised and society is returning to normality.
UAK has performed a lot of Sven-David Sandström's music throughout the years, and has had the wonderful pleasure to make the first performances of some of his major choral works: Matthäuspassion, Fürchte dich nicht, and Magnificat.
There is even one first performace left! Te Deum in the spring of 2020.
On this picture we see Sven-David Sandström celebrating with the chairman of UAK at the time, Pernilla Åsenlöf, following the first performance of the Magnificat in Stuttgart, Germany, 2005.
Thank you for all music and inspiration.