Far and Away concert, Falun, 20161028-29

It was finally time for me to do an actual troop in my own hometown! The regional symphonic orchestra, Dalasinfoniettan, had a sci-fi and fantasy-themed concert called Far and Away, and the Nordic Legions were invited. I was happy to do the troop, unfortunately due to some health and personal issues I was the only Nordic Legion member that could attend. Still I have quite a few Star Wars-costumes, so I drafted one of my nieces and dressed her up in my jawa costume. So there were at least two Nordic Legions costumes there. I also really enjoyed having some quality time with my niece and go on a concert with just her and nobody else in the family.

We arrived and got dressed up in a small room that was provided for us. Then we simple milled around until people started to arrive. The organizers had encouraged people to come in costume and there were a couple of them around, including a Lolita and a steampunker. There was a photo wall, so we mostly stood there so that could people could take photos of us.

Since it was in my hometown it was also fun to run into people I meet on other occasions than costuming/cosplay events. Nobody seemed to be surprised that I was there though.

This for example is the chief of competition for ski jumping in Fagersta, and last Saturday we both attended some ski jumping events in Stockholm. She also had a friend with her in a really nice Star Trek uniform, but I didn't get a photo with all three of us.

A jawa was of course perfect for the spooky almost-Halloween evening on Friday, and she scared a few in the audience when they arrived.

This is also a good example of what I like with being a costumer, and that is making other people happy. These people were dressed in at least parts of my costumes. The jawa was the full costume, then the boy had borrowed my Endor trooper helmet, vest, jacket and blaster. His father had borrowed my Endor Leia poncho and made quite a good Endor Luke.

As for the concert. It was divided into two parts, the first was themed space and the second was fantasy. Our region can't afford to have a fullsize symphonic orchestra and that unfortunately meant that especially for the space music they had chosen smaller themes, rather than bombastic pieces. For example from Star Wars they played Yoda's theme and the Binary sunset music, rather than Main title or Imperial March. Overall I felt that the second act, with the fantasy music was better, probably because I also recognized more of that music. I did get some real goosebumps though, and that was whenever the soprano Sabina Zweiacker was on stage. Her voice was lovely and she has that rare ability to be able to switch and sing both operatic and non-operatic, she had great diction even when she sang in various constructed languages.. Some of what she sang was music that I had never heard before, but I've known been listening to it a lot after the concert.

Since this a concept concert that's been performed by quite a few orchestras in Sweden it's possible to clips of them, just search for "Sagas", "Score" "Far and away" or Sabina Zweiacker. Apparently her signature song has become The Dragonborn comes from Skyrim, and I really liked this song.

I also loved the encore, which was a small aria that's a full orchestration and translation into Italian from an aria in Final Fantasy VI. One reason why I loved it is probably because it's clearly inspired by one of my favorite arias "Caro Mio".

The biggest goosebumps come from her version of the Rains of Castamere/the Children. Unfortunately I couldn't find a good online version of this, but this gives you an idea of what it was like.