Lucia in York Minster 2016

Lucia in the Minster

with visiting Järfälla Kammarkör and Vaxholm Boys 9 December 2016 Compilation by Eva Robards Photos, unless otherwise stated, by Barry Male (YASS)

Minster representatives involved The Dean of York Minster, The Very Reverend Vivienne Faull Photo from https://yorkminster.org

The Precentor, The Reverend Canon Peter Moger

Photo from www.linkedin.com/

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Head Verger Alex Carberry

Director of Music Richard Sharpe

Photo from www.yorkpress.co.uk

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Photo from www.robertsharpe.org.uk

in collaboration with

York Anglo-Scandinavian Society (YASS)

Working to promote friendship and understanding between the British and Scandinavian peoples

York Anglo-Scandinavian Society was founded in 1960, and our membership includes both native British and native Scandinavians resident temporarily or permanently in York.

The Society offers a full programme of meetings and lively discussions which enable members to share experiences and expand their knowledge of issues such as life, culture and geography of the Scandinavian countries. We also have a number of social events each year at which we join in Scandinavian songs and share Nordic food. www.yorkangloscan.org.uk Through our affiliation with CoScan (the Confederation of Scandinavian Societies) we are in touch with the many other societies who share our aims.

www.coscan.org.uk

The YASS planning group for 2016 Stine Blowers Sid Bradley Brita Green Malcolm Grundy Riitta Hanson Eva Robards Bernard Turgoose Pernilla Tweddle 3

The choirs for the procession in 2016

About the choir Järfälla kammarkör/Chamber Choir was formed in 1973. This is a mixed choir with about 30 members. Their reportoire is varied (oratorio, jazz, folk music, opera), with 3-4 concerts a year, including an annual Twelfth Night consert with traditional Christmas songs and carols.

Contact person (chairman of the choir): Pernilla Hammarstedt Rydberg pernillahr@hotmail.com

Photos from the choir’s website

Conductor, since 2008, is Alexander Klimentov Löfstrand.

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Vaxholm Boys

The Vaxholm Boys’ Choir were starboys in 2013. Three of them came back for Lucia in 2015, and in 2016 they were six singers.

Photo by Eva Robards

Järfälla kammarkör and the Vaxholm Boys rehearsing together in Järfälla, 2 December 2016

Photo by Pia Metz

The YASS singers YASS celebrates Lucia each year in Bedern Hall, one of the medieval halls in York.

Girls from YASS also take part in the Minster Lucia.

Photo by Richard Crossley 2015

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Marketing: our posters York AngloScandinavian Society

A Swedish

Festival of Light Sankta Lucia Friday 9 December

7.30 pm

in

York Minster

Supported by:

Free entry

and

A Swedish

Festival of Light Sankta Lucia

Friday 9 December 7.30 pm in

York Minster Free entry Supported by:

York AngloScandinavian Society

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Press release 1 December 2016 York Minster hosts Sankta Lucia – a Swedish Festival of Light Sankta Lucia - Festival of Light starts at 7.25 pm on Friday 9 December (doors open at 7.00pm) and lasts for around an hour. Admission is free and no booking is required. There will be a collection during the service.

The service Sankta Lucia, the traditional Swedish service celebrating the bringer of light during the long darkness of winter will take place at York Minster on Friday 9 December. This is an atmospheric and family-friendly event, organised for the fourth time in partnership between York AngloScandinavian Society (YASS) and the Minster.

The service incorporates a candlelit procession of choristers led by a young girl – Lucia – wearing a crown of candles on her head and a red sash around her waist. The crown of candles is thought to symbolise a halo and the red sash martyrdom. Lucia is followed by her attendants and the ‘starboys’. Traditional Swedish Christmas songs and carols will follow, before the singers process out.

This year, instead of a sermon, there will be a Swedish story: Dr Brita Green, member of YASS, will read The Holy Night, written by the Swedish novelist Selma Lagerlöf – the first woman to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature (in 1909).

Among the invited guests are the Civic Party of York, the Lord-Lieutenants of North Yorkshire and of West Yorkshire, North Yorkshire High Sheriff, and representation from the Swedish Embassy.

Background Sankta Lucia is a merger of pagan and Christian traditions, celebrating Saint Lucy who was a young Sicilian girl martyred for her Christian faith in the early 4th century. The starboys were initially linked to Epiphany but become integrated in the Lucia procession during the 20th century.

“We held the first Sankta Lucia service in 2013 and it has since gone from strength to strength, attracting around 1000 people,” explains Canon Peter Moger, Precentor at York Minster.

Eva Robards, of YASS, says: “Lucia has a special place in the hearts of the Swedish people. The customary day to celebrate is 13 December – the shortest day of the year before the calendar reform. On this day, or a day nearby for practical reasons, Lucia and her attendants spread light to almost every home, school, church and office. With the strong historic and cultural links between Yorkshire and Scandinavia, there is good reason for the Lucia tradition to have been introduced in York.”

Bernard Turgoose, also of YASS, adds that Lucia is becoming so popular with the people of the York area, because it is something very different from the usual Christmas fare.”

Singers This year the Swedish choir Järfälla kammarkör will form the procession. They come from the suburb Järfälla, just north of Stockholm. This mixed choir was set up in 1973 and has about thirty members. They have a very varied repertoire – ranging from oratorio and opera to jazz and folk music – and usually give three or four concerts a year, including an annual Twelfth Night concert with traditional Christmas songs and carols. Their conductor, Alexander Klimentov Löfstrand, 7

was born in St Petersburg in 1979 and moved to Stockholm when he was twenty. In addition to conducting, he plays the oboe and the piano, and is a freelance soloist and chamber and orchestral musician.

Järfälla kammarkör is joined by the Vaxholm Boys' Quintet, the young ‘starboys’ of the procession.

They participated in Lucia in the Minster in 2013 and 2015, so this makes it their third appearance here. Vaxholm is a municipality in the Stockholm archipelago.

Members of the YASS Lucia Singers are also joining the procession. They are Scandinavian and English girls from the York area.

Lucia Matilda Jarl is the name of this year’s Lucia. She is 15 years old and still at school, where she studies art. She has a passion for helping others and her dream is to become a primary school teacher.

YASS York Anglo-Scandinavian Society (YASS) works to promote friendship and understanding between Britain and the Scandinavian countries. Its aim is to bring together as many people as possible from York and the surrounding area with an interest – whatever it might be – in Scandinavia.

Its members (British and Scandinavian) regularly meet for talks, which cover a wide range of Scandinavian topics, and for social events, such as our special Midsummer and Christmas celebrations. We also organise country walks and have a singing group and two reading circles (Swedish and Danish).

YASS is affiliated with the Confederation of Scandinavian Societies in Great Britain and Ireland (CoScan), which is working to link and support Scandinavian organisations. The CoScan Trust Fund, to which a substantial portion of the collection will be donated, helps young British people to travel to the Nordic countries.

Sponsors The Lucia event is sponsored by the Embassy of Sweden, Lord Mayors Charities 2015-16, IKEA, Senior Architectural Systems and Carlbom Shipping Ltd. ENDS For media enquiries contact: Eva Robards – Co-ordinator for the Planning group of York Anglo-Scandinavian Society evarobards@aol.com Tel. 01423 331023 (Mobile 07740 465710) 8

Reception for Järfälla Kammarkör held by the Civic Party at Bedern Hall on 8 December

Alexander Klimentov Löfstrand conducting in thanks for the reception.

Lord Mayor Dave Taylor, Lady Mayoress Susan Ridley, and the Sheriff’s Lady Brenda Tyler immediately beside him.

The guestbook is the only item that the Lord Mayor and Sheriff are allowed to take with them after their year in office. Signatures are thus most appreciated.

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Photos by Eva Robards

YASS’master plan for the day

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Afternoon rehearsal

Brita Green in discussion with Peter Moger 12

Eva Robards in discussion with Lucia/Matilda Jarl

Lucia practising standing in front of the altar 13

and proceeding out

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Two little tomtenissar – the conductor’s 5-year old twin sons

Helpful guidance from the ubiquitous Pia Metz

It was a long afternoon, just sitting still ...

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YASS setting up for refreshments in the Chapter House

Briefing of YASS stewards

Photos by Eva Robards

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One of our guest tickets

FESTIVAL OF LIGHT WITH LUCIA PROCESSION York Minster, Friday 9 December, 7.25 pm.

Tom Egan

Director of Norwegian Study Centre RESERVED SEAT Please enter by the South-West door (below the right-hand tower of the West End of the Minster) and show this ticket to a steward.

You are warmly invited to light refreshments in the Chapter House immediately following the service.

Access to the Chapter House is through the North Transept.

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Some of our guests

Dr Ingrid M Roscoe The Lord-Lieutenant of West Yorkshire

Barry Dodd CBE The Lord-Lieutenant of North Yorkshire

The York Civic Party Lord Mayor Councillor Dave Taylor and Lady Mayoress Susan Ridley to the right, Sheriff of York Jonathan Tyler and Sheriff’s Lady Brenda Tyler to the left

Richard Shephard MBE Deputy Lieutenant Composer, former educator and Director of Development and Chamberlain of York Minster

John W Furness North Yorkshire High Sheriff

Professor Sir Ron Cooke Honorary Freeman of the City of York Photos from websites

Counsellor Johan Berglund - The Swedish Embassy in London Swedish Consuls from Manchester and Newcastle and the Finnish Consul from Manchester Masters from six of the seven Guilds in York Representatives from CoScan societies in Hull, Lincolnshire, Manchester, Northampton

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A verger leads the Lucia participants from the South Transept to the West End, from where the procession will start after the Gathering and a Scandinavian story.

Brita Green reads the Scandinavian story ‘The holy night’ by Selma Lagerlöf.

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The choirs move in procession

from the West End to the Nave Sanctuary

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Singing from the Nave Sanctuary

Lucia with the starboys

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Dr Malcolm Grundy, Chairman of YASS, reads In the beginning was the Word ... (the Second Bible Reading).

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The choirs leave the Nave Sanctuary in procession

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The Chapter House reception

Järfälla Kammarkör entertaining with more songs

Bernard Turgoose, YASS Treasurer, has presented the starboys with a handcrafted mug each.

Photos by Eva Robards 24

Publicity, online

The Guardian ‘News Pictures of the Day’

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A news website in Vietnam

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Photographers/Image banks Barry Male: http://artphotogallery.photoshelter.com/index Ian Forsyth: www.ianforsythphotographer.com/blog/2016/12/documentary/sankta-lucia-2016/ www.gettyimages.fr/%C3%A9v%C3%A9nement/the-sankta-lucia-is-celebratedat-york-minster-687069061#matilda-jarl-from-the-jarfalla-chamber-choir-nearstockholm-sweden-picture-id628787560

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