Join local opera expert Erika Reitshamer for her next installment of her “Opera is Cool” lecture series. Enjoy a lively discussion of Ingmar Bergman’s 1975 film The Magic Flute (Swedish: Trollflöjten). Using the clips of 1975 Swedish film Reitshamer will give an in-depth explanation of the opera, as well as a peek into the lives Bergman and Mozart as well.
Saturday, January 13th 1pm (90 minutes) | $15; $7 for SCC members
Speaker: Erika Reitshamer, born and educated in Germany, is a passionate and lifelong fan of opera. She was active in the formation of the Boston Lyric Opera Co. more than 35 years ago. As VP of the Boston Wagner Society, she presented lectures, organized concerts, and promoted visiting scholars, She is a board member of the New England Opera Club, a member of the Sudbury Opera Lovers Organization, and teacher of opera appreciation for LLARC at Regis College, Newton Lifelong Education and WISE at Assumption College.
Jean Sibelius: Våren flyktar hastigt op.13 no. 4 (J. L. Runeberg)
Jean Sibelius: Den första kyssen op. 37 no. 1 (J. L. Runeberg)
Richard Strauss (1864-1949): Allerseelen op. 10 no. 8 (H. von Gilm)
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827): Sonata in F major op. 54
1. In Tempo d’un Menuetto
2. Allegretto
Edvard Grieg (1843-1907): Jeg elsker dig! op. 5 no. 3 (H. C. Andersen)
Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924): Si, mi chiamano Mimi (opera La Boheme)
Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943): Six moments musicaux op. 16
The SCC is proud to co-present Swedish/Norwegian/German film What Will They Say as part of the 2018 Belmont World Film Festival. This will also be the New England premiere of the film.
Based extensively on the director’s experience as a teenage daughter of Pakistani immigrants in Norway, the film represents a doomed quest to reconcile two worldviews and cultures that stand in fundamental opposition to each other. Pakistani immigrants living in Norway send their 16 year-old daughter away to live with relatives in Pakistan after she is caught kissing her secret Norwegian boyfriend, only to return to Norway after innocently bringing shame to the family yet again.
Speaker: Dr. Naheed Usmani, Professor of Pediatric Oncology at UMass Medical Center in Worcester, who is responsible for founding a number of Pakistani organizations in the US and Pakistan.
106 minutes. In Norwegian and Urdu with English subtitles.
Monday, April 23rd | 7:30 | Admission $9 – $12 | SCC Members save $2 on advanced tickets
The music of Jepokryddona springs from the Swedish speaking regions of Jeppo in Nykarleby, Ostrobothnia, Finland. In fact, Jeppo is one of the few places in the world where the minuet and the polska remain part of a living tradition of playing and dancing. Jeppo is a source of countless old-style melodies.
Jepokryddona play with a young, fresh touch – but with the same swing and fire as the old fiddlers. Tunes are always learnt by ear. All the arrangements on this recording have been made by Christine Julin-Häggman, the leader of the group.
Saturday, June 16th | 7pm | tickets $15; free for SCC Members
Here’s a list of all the Nordic Christmas Events happening around New England this holiday season:
November:
Saturday, 4th – Evangelical Covenant Church of Attleboro’s Bit o’ Sweden Fall Fair
Saturday, 11th – Sons of Norway Scandinavian Fair (Acton, MA)
Saturday, 11th-12th – Karl’s Sausage Kitchen and European Market Annual Christmas Fair (Peabody, MA)
Saturday, 25th – Birka Lodge of Vasa Order’s Swedish Yule Fair (Hamilton, MA)
Come join us as we showcase The New Land (Nybyggarna, 1972) on November 18. Adapted from The Emigrants book series by Vilhelm Moberg, follow the life of the Nilsson family in mid-1800’s Sweden. We see their struggle as a farming family in Sweden, their eventual move to Minnesota in the United States, and the hardship of making a new place a home. The films are regarded as cinematic masterpieces that more accurately reflect the struggles of immigration. The film received the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film and were nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Awards. Thia films is co-presented with our very own Scandinavian Library as a part of their Northern Lights Nordic Film Series. Watch the trailer here.
Saturday, November 18th | 1pm | Admission $8, $5 for SCC Members
The film is in Swedish with English subtitles. The New Land is 202 minutes. An intermission will be provided halfway through each film. Light refreshments will be provided with lunch for purchase from our Kaffestugan.
Starting on Saturday, November 25th our Kaffestugan will be serving up seasonal Lucia treats like julmust and lussekatter through the holiday season! Come on by and have a fika every Saturday!
Join the Birka Lodge of the Vasa Order of America for their annual Swedish Yule Market. There will be a Lucia procession, Scandinavian and American holiday music, crafts and gifts, open faced sandwiches, coffee, breads and pastries, and glögg!
Saturday, November 25th
Hamilton/Wenham Community House (Bay Road Route 1-A) in Hamilton, MA
9am-2:30pm
Lucia Procession at 12pm
Free Admission
The Scandinavian Cultural Center is proud to once again partner with Boston’s Wicked Queer Film Festival group to present the new Tom of Finland film as a part of the Bright Lights Series.
Touko Laaksonen, a decorated officer, returns home after a harrowing and heroic experience serving his country in World War II, but life in Finland during peacetime proves equally distressing. He finds peace-time Helsinki rampant with persecution of the homosexual and men around him even being pressured to marry women and have children. Touko finds refuge in his liberating art, specializing in homoerotic drawings of muscular men, free of inhibitions. His work made famous by his signature ‘Tom of Finland’ – became the emblem of a generation of men and fanned the flames of a gay revolution. Discussion led by faculty member and The New York Times Magazine Writer Benoit Denizet-Lewis to follow.
Directed by Dome Karukoski, 115 minutes, Finland, 2017
Thursday, December 7th at 7pm, Free Admission
With deep roots in the Swedish and Finnish folk music traditions, this new duo performs both traditional music from the two countries as well as their original music. Having met at the New England Conservatory, Sara Pajunen and Sunniva Brynnel found an instant musical kinship.
The violin and accordion are sometimes playing like one voice and at other times complementing each other in sympathetic, melodious, and playful ways. Singing in Finnish, Swedish and English, the duo brings to the stage their musical backgrounds and passions. See examples of their work here.
Saturday, November 11th | 1pm
Admission $15; Free for SCC Members
