Laurentiuse kirik: Breaking the Ice

Outside Laurentiuse kirik

At our final concert before Unistus left the United States and headed for Europe, our director Lonnie Cline leaned in for a quiet word with the choir.

"I can't wait," he said, pausing to control his emotions, "to see the looks on your faces when you get it."

Last night, Unistus kicked off our Estonian concert tour at Kuressaare's Laurentiuse kirik (St. Lawrence Church) on the island of Saaremaa. 

And I got it.

It's been a theme on facebook among the many choir members who are visiting Estonia for the first time and I don't want to seem like I'm simply following a trend, but it's impossible to set aside the reverberant feeling from last night's performance.

The first half was a mixture of sacred and world folk music, and as expected, the loudest applause was for the Estonian piece "Arkamise aeg" that we led off with. In the second half, koik muusika lauldi eesti keeles -- all the music was sung in Estonian, and it had an immediate impact. The audience deeply appreciated the things we had done in the first half of the konsert, but this was different. This was love, this was passion, this was an out poring of everything that moved their nation.

We worked our way through the Estonian set, with each song recieving a louder applause than the last before finally reaching a personal favorite, Ta lendab mesipuu poole.

Here's the translation:

He flies from blossom to blossom
and flies towards the beehive.
And a thundercloud rises to the sky,
he flies towards the beehive.

And thousands fall on the road,
more thousands reach home
and take away the worry and care,
and they fly towards the beehive.

Soul, oh soul, at difficult times -
how you long for fatherland.
Whether you're at home, whether on foreign land,
how you long for fatherland.

And may the wind of death blow against you,
and may the bullet of death fly against you.
You forget death and care,
and hurry towards the fatherland.

Inside Laurentiuse kirik

The story behind this song is a good one. Many Estonians fled the country during the world wars, setting up home around the world. When Estonia was finally freed in the early 1990s, this song became a call for Estonians to return home.

And so it makes perfect sense that a song with words this powerful would pack a punch, and it did. We finished the song and the people were on their feet with tears in their eyes. They continued to cheer and cheer, and as is the custom when an audience applauds endlessly, we prepared to sing the song again.

It was after the second repetition that it became clear. The people stood once again, and the tears became contagious. The rest of the set -- Tuljak and Peace I Leave With You -- went by in a blur, and after a few shaky moments in the back room, we returned to the sanctuary to thank the people for coming to our konsert.

The first lady I talked to was a head shorter than I and spoke only enough English to tell me tearfully that it was "beautiful music" and grasped my hands, looking to the lady to her left for some semblance of a way to express her thanks. I was move enough that I could only manage to tell her aitäh before being shuffled down the line of waiting patrons. 

I spoke with another choir member a few minutes later, both of us struggling to grasp the enormity of what had just happened. If every konsert were to be this powerful, as I expect them to be, we'll be running on tears, love and caffeine for the remainder of the trip.