Next goal : 5000 € !

We have just reached our first goal of 2500 € !!!

Thank you to all 27 contributors, to your support and encouragements, we are blissed ! :)

4 days left until the end of the collect, an opportunity to continue helping us ! If everyone shares the link of our crowdfunding page and donates 1€, it will enable us to finance other aspects of the travel. Next goal : 5000 € (the use of this goal is detailed at the bottom of the page).

We are two young music-therapists who have set ourselves a challenge - to use music as an exchange tool to meet populations from the Baltic and Scandinavian countries.

Through a repertoire of traditional songs, we hope to partake in the Nordic traditional and musical culture, and also to investigate and put into effect music-therapy, our discipline.

For centuries now, the Baltic and Scandinavian countries have been bestowed with the periodical singing and dancing traditions which enhance their calendars. In 2008, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were in effect added to the « Representative List of the Intangible Heritage of Humanity » by UNESCO for their musical traditions.

In these countries, music is known to be at its apogee during great events such as the « Laulupidu Song festival » which happens every fifth year in Estonia, and the « Skamba Skamba Kankliai » in Lithuania, where we will be participating.

During the travel, we will :

Sing in the streets and in people’s homes in exchange for board and lodging
go to festivals to investigate the musical traditions of each country
do work-awaying to take part in the local life
do musical residencies ; to work on our repertoire, compose and organize concerts

Thus we will be using videos, podcasts, and articles to promote our discoveries, encounters and cultural events that may cross our route.

We will begin our musical trip at the end of April 2019 by starting our travels from Montpellier, and then cross Italy, Austria and the Czech Republic, before arriving in Poland for the « Wszystkie mazurki swiata » festival (all Mazurkas in the world) where we will participate as volunteers.

We will then make a couple of stops in the Baltic countries to assist different musical moments which punctuate the life of its inhabitants. One of the highlights of our travel will be in Tallinn with the 150th anniversary of the « Laulupidu Song Festival » where we hope to participate as chorists.

We will continue our musical adventure by stopping off at the « Arts festival of Helsinki » at the end of August and plan on staying a couple of weeks in Finland to pursue our musical investigations and take part in the local life through musical residencies and work-awaying.

On our way to Norway, we will cross both Finnish and Swedish Laplands and drive through Sweden where we will make a couple of stops before landing in the region of Bergen. Once over there, we plan to refine our knowledge of music and music therapy alongside musicians and music therapists previously contacted.

To commemorate the end of our magical musical trip, we have committed ourselves to participate in the celebration of Saint Lucie in Sweden, which happens every thirteenth of December each year.

This festivity which celebrates light has symbolic overtones in Scandinavia where darkness rules over winter. The idea of light overcoming darkness has been welcomed by the locals for hundreds of years and celebrated with musical processions illuminated by thousands of candles. Furthermore, this celebration is a great deal for us, as we both share the common name : Lucie.

We plan to be back in Montpellier in January 2020.

Singing on the road