The borders of the world

One of the CD's I am working on right now is the new CD and songbook for my workshops in Germany. Actually I use the songs everywhere, but I work together with my german friends in Creative Kirche, and many of the songs are inspired by german choirs. So the only really german thing is that instead of "More products from Joakim Arenius" (in the advertisement on the back) you read "Weiter produktionen von Joakim Arenius".

But music does not have borders, and neither does faith. I have been with many german groups to New York, USA, and I will go again soon. I have been with spanish friends to Germany (Gospel Kirchentag in Dortmund 2012). I brought a russian friend to music camp in Spain last year (Toral 2013). In May I will go with my old swedish choir Joybells to Russia. And I can go on.

All this traveling is on my mind now, of course, because I will spend one month in Pennsylvania, USA, and I wonder if it really will be worth it to be away from my family for such a long time? I mean, America sometimes seems to be the country that already has everything, so why should another person go there to work?

I come from a traveling family and I believe that traveling has taught me more than school (sorry, fellow teachers). One of the students at Lancaster Bible College, who grew up in Lancaster, told me that this college is in an area where a lot of people like to stay their whole lives, and don't travel very far for vacation either. I don't know how true that is and that does not have to be a good or bad thing, per se. But maybe I can expand somebody's cultural borders by introducing a little influence from Germany, Russia, Spain, Scandinavia, Italy and other places? Ask me a month from now and I'll tell you if that's what happened.

More info about my trip is in earlier blogs, and in blogs to come.

America 2014

Posted two blogs yesterday, just to get started with this thing again. I intend to write something everyday during the next five or six weeks, because I expect to experience some adventures that I should share with more people. My family can't come with me, so this blog is one of many ways to stay in touch with my three wonderful girls.

So, here's the thing… March 25th I leave Sweden and fly to Newark airport. Sandi, who became a dear friend of me and Thorine when we lived in New York over ten years ago, will meet me at the airport and she lets me stay at her summerhouse in Pennsylvania. I go back to Sweden on April 23rd. During the month I am in the US I will first of all be teaching at Lancaster Bible College. I don't a lot about my schedule yet, but I expect to arrive at the college in the mornings, do something music-ish, and then have dinner and go to bed. Well, maybe I simplify the whole thing a little, but I need to have something to blog about tomorrow too.

My obligations are to the students at the college, but I will also have the opportunity to meet with old friends in New York, Philadelphia and other places. And thanks to modern technology (is it old school to still say "modern technology"?) I can continue the CD recordings I am involved with back home.

April 10th there's a major event in Lancaster, PA, where I hope to see many of my friends from the American east coast, and maybe some swedes too?

Update on Spain

Of course I can not write an update on everything I know have happened in the world of spanish music since the last time I wrote on this blog. But some things are extra interesting right now. First of all the reason for going to the United States now, is because of Dan, who I got to know at the gospel camp in Toral, close to Leon in north west Spain. Dan is now the headmaster of the music and arts department at Lancaster Bible College, and that's where I will be in March and April. Last year some of their students came with Dan to Toral, and I really hope to meet them again. They were a great group of people!

The camp in Toral in 2008 was my first encounter with the spanish gospel music and all the great people who present it. Back then Aina was only three years old, and she learned to swim in the pool next to the camp. So many memories over they years.

My "spanish" work in the spring of 2014 concerns the new CD of Gospel Gloria. Sergio and the amazing singers and musicians from Valencia recorded ten great original songs and I have the privilege to be the producer. Right now we are finishing the last of the mixing, and I hope everyone who reads this buys a copy of the CD and then buy some extra for your friends and family.

Another update for this year is the song writing class in Zaragoza, where Jonathan will help me be the professor via Skype. I think it's a part of ECAZ, the school I visited in 2012, which is also connected to the Zaragoza gospel choir and their director Marta.

I keep thinking of more things I want to share from my spanish friends, but dinner is ready. A man can't live by blogging alone. Please come back here and feel free to comment. I'm just warming up...

A little rusty, but still...

I have been away from this blog for some time. For some reason it seems less relevant to share the things that happen while I live in Sweden. It's probably just my stupid ideas and something I have to work on.

Anyway, it's time to travel again. I will be away for one month in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, USA. My family can not come with me, unfortunately, but I will still do my blogging under the Arenius Familia headline, because we do this as a family even if we can't be together physically for a few weeks.

So I hope there will be some interesting stories coming up here soon!

More pictures

If you are Facebook friends with us you can access the three photo albums I made from our time in Spain. It is just a few pictures, but for us it brings back many memories.

We also want to thank everybody who puts pictures from our different adventures on their walls. It is a great way for us to keep the memories alive!

Swedish church music

I am at a conference in Sweden right now with thousands of christians from all over our country. An hour ago I came back from a seminar about the future christian music of Sweden. In my opinion it was a terrible seminar! Sweden has some of the most gifted singers and musicians in the world, and especially in the churches. But for 90 minutes we were just sitting and talking about the good old days. Or maybe that’s not fair. For 80 minutes we were talking about the good old days, and for 10 minutes we talked about that we hope that somebody else will change the music in the churches so that it becomes good again. That was depressing.

There are so many things we can do, if look at ourselves and into our own hearts and ask the question “what can I do?” No matter if you are a musical person or not, if you always wait for somebody else to do something, NOTHING will happen!

Lumen

The second weekend of June I was in Trnava, Slovakia, where we had a concert with Praise Unit at the Lumen festival. The concert was in the centre of the city on an outdoor stage. It was hard for us to imagine there would be thousands of people in a Slovakian city jumping and singing with the Praise Unit songs. The festival was great and the people took very well care of us.

The festival was organized by the catholic church, which gave me a lot to think of. I had just come home from Spain, where I felt that some catholics did not want to communicate with me, because I was from a different church. But at the Lumen festival there were several catholics who took my hand, looked me in the eye and told me that they wanted me to testify and speak ackording to my evangelical faith, even if the festival was organized by catholics. I hope I remember to greet them with the same friendly attitude when they visit my country!

Taking a break

I took a break from writing on this blog in the beginning of June, when we came to Dortmund for the big gospel festival, Gospel Kirchentag. Since then I have been busy with some other travels, and the things that were waiting for us in Sweden.

I want to write a few more messages here, about our adventure in Spain, Gospel Kirchentag and other things, and then this blog will take a break until the Arenius Familia goes on a new adventure, or I have another reason to continue writing here.

Love and marriage

Laura is the woman who has control of the work I have been doing in Spain for the past three months. The schedule has changed many times and I would have been lost without the organizational expertise of Laura's mind. There has always been an email or sms or phone call from Laura to confirm the dates and hours. I don't know if the people I have visited in different cities in Spain know how much Laura has done to make everything work in every city. She has always been one step ahead, and the only time she looked tired was when I took my swedish friend Anna to her apartment at 2.30 in the morning.

Laura was so great at helping me from the very first day, so my first thought was "wow, she really likes me", but then she told me why she really likes to help...

...and the truth was...

...she really likes José.

The first time I was in Spain with my family was at the Camp Toral, a camp for gospel music in a small village where everything smells like cows. At the camp was Laura and it was there that she fell in love with her future husband, José. So whenever I teach a gospel song Laura closes her eyes and remember her first love for her husband. Hmmmm, and I thought my music was the good thing...

Anyway, José gave up his Madrid life to move to Valencia for Laura, and we are so happy for that! 

Yesterday me and Thorine sang "All the time" together with Laura and José (who are great singers too) and the church choir from our church in Valencia. It was great and I hope we do it again soon!
Well, when I first got to know José everybody called him "JB", and to my swedish friends who want to call him "JB" it is pronounced "schååååtahweee".

My superheroes

If you are my Facebook friend you will find one photo album from our first month in Spain and another one from our second month. An album for the month of May will come in a few weeks.

Hamburgers

My wife and daughters have not tried any of the weird food that I tried (and enjoyed) in Madrid this weekend. But they did enjoy some hamburgers and from what I understand they enjoyed the company of many nice friends.

We are still apart (I go back to Valencia tomorow), but Thorine just told me via Skype about the concert last Saturday, where she played the flute, and all the people they met and all the places they visited over the weekend. They seem to have enjoyed our spanish home while I was in Madrid.

Smile

A whole day of singing and playing with the worship team from Lacy church in Madrid is over. We had a great time, as always! We did Kirk Franklin's "Smile" in spanish (Rio), and we also practised the swedish song "Blott en dag" (Dia en dia), which we will sing tomorrow.

For dinner Juan Marcos took me to a nice tapas-place (which was not tapas, but I did not understand why), and I tasted octopus that has one bone. Yes, there is an octopus that has a bone, the size of a toothpick in its body. The food is different here in Spain, but still very good!

Countdown

In a few minutes I will start working with the singers and musicians in the church of Juan Marcos in Madrid. This is my last weekend away from Valencia. Then there is only more rehearsals and a concert with Coro Gloria in Valencia, and after that get in our car and drive to Dortmund for Gospel Kirchentag. It is sad to feel that this wonderful time in Spain is soon coming to an end, but it will be good to meet our friends in Germany and Sweden soon.

Shabach

"Ensayo" with Coro Gloria tonight. We did "Shabach" with a lot of fiestaaaa-feeling. My girls were there too, dancing and singing with me and the choir.

Tomorrow it's Madrid again. Unfortunately I go alone this time, but I think Juan Marcos will keep me pretty busy.  :)

Frozen coffee

Swedish people drink a lot of coffee. I like to do it more when I am working with something. The other day when I came to Sergio's house he asked if I wanted a cup of coffee and I said yes, of course. But instead of going for a pot on the stove, he opened the freezer and took out two glasses of frozen coffee. My first thought was "what have you done to my coffee?!?!?!?!?!?!?", and I felt like I just saw the train leaving and I was left alone on the station. But we mixed it the spanish way with some milk and/or other stuff and it tasted very good. Better than that frappucino they have at Starbucks. Maybe I will bring that habit to Sweden?

Warming up with Praise Unit

New clothes and new coreography while I am here in Spain. I have no idea how Praise Unit is rehearsing right now, but it seems to be pretty interesting. I will meet my PU friends again in Dortmund in June. They have emailed me some movies of the new coreography. When I look at it I miss them a lot! It is such a blessing to me to work with the talented people of Praise Unit and I am glad that we meet soon to do concerts at Gospel Kirchentag and other places in Germany and Slovakia. I hope you will be there too!

No!

Many people ask me if I ever get tired of music, or gospel music in particular, or working with christians, or travelling, or working with amateur choirs, or other questions that start with "do you ever get tired of...", and the truth is "no"!

No, I don't get tired of doing what I do. Sometimes I get tired of my own personality, because I have some kind of extreme desire to always do things that nobody else did before me, and that is often bad for myself, my family and my closest work buddies. But even if I have this desire to explore new things and new music, I have not forgotten the love for my roots. "Oh happy day" is a gospel classic that people outside of church always want to listen to, and gospel choirs always are tired of singing. With "Gospel Coro de Castilla La Mancha" I was priviliged to direct "Oh happy day" and I loved every minute of it. I did not have much time to get to know this choir, so when I was directing them in concert I had to look into their eyes to see if they were up to doing something fun with the song.... and I was glad to see that they were! We had a great time with "Oh happy day"! I am so glad that there are choirs who like to bring their energy into this song, and I am glad that I still have the love for this song!

No, I am not tired of doing the classic songs. How could I be?

Snails and pigs

I have been away from the Internet over the weekend, so I could not write about my experience with the singers and musicians in Albacete, Castilla La Mancha. I will write about it tomorrow, and leave no details.

There is lots to say, of course, but before I forget it I want to share my first meal with the Albacetians with you!

Pedro and Pedro is kind of the central figures in this choir. Last Friday, after Pedro, Pedro and I had picked up the new drum kit for the concert, we had a meal in some restaurant in a suburb of Albacete. We had "tapas", which means that everybody around the table share the same plates. Something unusual for a swedish person could be that one of the plates was full of snails (I counted and estimated between 80-100 snails on the plate) and another plate had pieces of the tail of a pig ("knorr" for my swedish friends). I am not sure how big the tail of a pig really is, but I ate five pieces and ackording to my spanish friends I probably ate almost a complete tail. It tasted, well, it was kind of... pigtailish.
The snails were ok. I have eaten snails before. The difference this time was that they were smaller and the eyes were still pointing out at me. So every snail was kind of looking at me with that typical "why me"-look that only a snail can give you. But I ate them anyway and tried to not look them in the eyes before introducing them to the pigtails.

After this interesting meal started my weekend in Albacete which included a talented piano player that I had already worked with in Alcoi and four brothers who I have heard stories about in every city I visited in Spain. Stay tuned...

Deutschland? Sverige?

As we have just a few weeks left in Spain, and we are going to the festival in Dortmund, I feel the need to write some thoughts on my other "home" -Germany.

When I started with gospel music in the 90's I had no idea that Germany would be such a big part of my work and take such a big place in my heart. Thanks to Creative Kirche and Gospel Kirchentag I made many new friends quickly, and today I feel like I have a german family too.

When I started travelling to Germany I was talking to Thorine about doing what we are doing in Spain right now -stay there for a longer period to get to know the country and share my music ministry with some choirs for more than a weekend. But I was nervous about that, because the german language was then, and is still, difficult for me. I don't know what would have happened if I lived in Germany for a while, but even if I have not (yet) done it, I have still followed the development of music and gospel music in particular.

In my opinion many of the most exciting things in gospel music happens in Germany these days. There are many well organized festivals with a clear vision and great ideas. New choirs pop up here and there like they used to in sweden in the 90's. There is the full spectrum from advanced and creative singers and musicians to amateurs who create a better atmosphere in their neighborhood through their music.

I have already criticized Swedish church music in my blog, and I don't have to write the same thing again. But I need to mention one more thing that has made the german gospel scene more interesting than the swedish. Sweden (and often also the other nordic countries and some other countries as well) like to invite african american artists to teach gospel music, and nobody else. In Germany there is an interest in other european artists, not only african american, which has given character to the german gospel sound. While many swedish choirs aim for the american sound, many german choirs aim for their own sound, and I think it makes them strong as a group and interesting for the listener.

Again I make generalizations that are not always true, of course. And I know some people say that I am the most americanized song writer you can find in Sweden, so who am I to talk? Well, I like to talk about it, and you are free to comment on this blog or email me. ;-)

Desafinado

I forgot to mention that Jon brought his mandolin and ukulele yesterday. So I grabbed my bandurria and we had a little jam session. We sang some of the old american folk songs. We all tried to sing and sometimes Stella could join us on the ukulele. Thorine, Anna and me tried to sing something swedish. We did 12 seconds from "Uti vår hage" and then I messed it up with my unreliable tenor voice.

The guitar was used too, but the D-string is actually constantly out of tune, or "siempre desafinado".