Male Energy Through Culture

Text Timo Raussi

Photo Estonian National Male Choir / Jaan Krivel 

What should one expect from a concert where male choir singing and rock meet? In any case, we are convinced that it will be an event worth experiencing in person.

At the end of March, the Estonian National Male Choir, known as RAM or Rahvusmeeskoor, which won a Grammy award for its “Sibelius cantatas” among other works, will step before the audience with the pop band Traffic and its vocalist Silver Laas for a performance titled “Raua needmine 2.0”. So that sweat and testosterone do not completely fill the air at the Pärnu Concert Hall on 25 March and at the Estonia Concert Hall in Tallinn on 26 March, musical theatre artist Hanna-Liisa Võsa will also appear on stage as a balancing presence.

According to the concert’s musical director and arranger Siim Aimla, the evening’s programme, consisting of iconic Estonian rock songs from past decades, aims to show just how much male choir singing and rock music actually have in common.

“Iron and metal are elements that suit rock music well, almost like its physical counterparts. Rock’s most important instrument, the electric guitar, produces its sound from metal strings, and rock musicians are, or at least present themselves as, tough as iron both physically and mentally. With this concert we pay tribute to the best of Estonian rock music and its predecessors,” Aimla explains.

The concert’s name, “Raua needmine”, which means “Cursing iron”, is a direct reference to a well-known song by the Estonian choral composer Veljo Tormis. In Aimla’s opinion, Estonia’s first rock festival actually took place as early as 1869, when a group of male choirs gathered in Tartu for the first Song Festival. “There was rock spirit in those songs and in those men! Although, due to the lack of electricity, the ensembles at the time had only wind-powered instruments, in other words wind instruments. The powerful patriotic style of singing and playing already contained rock-like elements.”

Aimla, known for combining and honouring different musical genres, is in fact a jazz musician whose own choir experience began in the RAM boys’ choir, and continued with choral conducting studies at the Tallinn Music High School. In 2011, Aimla was responsible for leading the so-called rock choir segment at the nationwide Song Festival.

Tickets for the Pärnu concert on 25 March and the Tallinn concert on 26 March are still available here.

To learn more about this and similar topics
Choral Singing events music Pärnu Rahvusmeeskoor Rock Tallinn