Säffle-Tidningen 181219
By: MARINA JOHANSSON
Joy and expectation, lack and sorrow, stress and longing. December awakens many and mixed feelings, but they have never been reflected as beautifully as when childhood friends and artist colleges Helen Sjöholm and Anna Stadling sung them on Medis on Tuesday.
Christmas is a time when many of us meet old friends again, who returned to the hometown for the holidays. For Anna Stadling and Helen Sjöholm, December has been such a period. The childhood friends, who were born in Sweden’s choir singing metropolis Sundsvall with one day’s interval, have been following each other through life since the age of eleven and shared both appearances and secrets, but they haven´t been singing together in this way in 20 years. Sharing a Christmas Music Tour is a dream come true.
– Dreams are to be held. This is a concert at your own request, Helen Sjöholm says, a singer who doesn´t need a closer presentation.
It´s her first visit to a Säffle scene, while equally well-reputed and deeply appreciated, Anna Stadling “has almost become a Säffle citizen by now”.
Christmas’s many sides
December is no longer than most months. Rather, it may feel the opposite, with the few bright hours. Nevertheless, one should squeeze in so much, while at the same time be delighted and provide space for joy, expectation and longing. Dreams are a theme found throughout the repertoire, but it´s not always the lucky variety (…) Much – but not all – is a bit sad, in a well-balanced mix of old and new, Swedish and English, sacred and popular. The concert opens strongly with Winter Song by Sara Bareilles and Ingrid Michaelson, a duet sung by many artists in recent years, which clearly captures it for many bittersweet taste of Christmas. The artists also show right away where the rib is laid tonight – they sing fabulously each one separately, and together they form a compound accomplished like cherry sauce on rice à la malta.
Evening continues in the same way in modern songs such as Eva Dahlgren’s Snow and Coldplay’s Christmas Lights, mixed with English carols like The Holly & The Ivy and Swedish classics, such as Gläns över sjö och strand – powerfully presented with inwrought anecdotes about the artists’ own musical Christmas memories.
Christmas time in Washington by Steve Earle – with the Swedish text Juletid i Göteborg – is Anna Stadlings most beautiful moment during the evening, and that says a lot. Her voice is sparkling and at the same time as strong and brittle as a frozen lake when she sings about the lonely man who wishes this Christmas to be his last.
Helen Sjöholm, for her part, gets the ceiling lifting in her showpiece Gabriella’s song. No Christmas song, but the audience forgets that, because when she sings there’s actually only her in the world for a little while. The applause is almost deafening even before the last tone, and even the colleagues on stage can not hold back the tears.
The audience doesn´t get enough of this beautiful singing, which provides a much needed breathing space from queue hysterics, cleaning stresses and unplowed roads.
– I want it to be us when it comes to December again, Helen Sjöholm sings, and I think that everyone agrees. Sometimes the Christmas atmosphere is best when it’s for two voices.