In August 1996 seven guys from Atlanta came together to practice singing for the Nordic Lodge #708 at its crawfish party later in the same month. They were Bruce Larson, Sam Linden, Gunnar Carteng, Sten Ekberg, Dale Nordin, Dennis Carlson and Göran Rygert. We were able to put together a 30-minute program from Sweden’s well-known repertoire for men’s choir, including also a few schnapps songs. We called ourselves “The Vikings”. The performance went well, we sounded pretty good and got an appetite for more and started rehearsing on a regular basis. Then we changed our name to “Vasa Drängar” (meaning Vasa Farmhands). The name Vasa Drängar was inspired by the famous Swedish men’s choir Orphei Drängar of Uppsala.
We grew slowly, were 10 members two years later. Then, after a couple of years with very little activity, we grew again and in 2015 we were 15 members. We sang at almost every Swedish event: The Scandinavian Festival, Valborgsmässoafton, Sweden’s National Day, crawfish parties, Lucia, Christmas dinners – even at Julotta. First mostly in Atlanta but later also out of town. The small town Thorsby, Alabama, founded by Swedes from Värmland, invited us to sing at their Swedish festival. From Raleigh, North Carolina came in 2007 an invitation to sing at their annual Scandinavian Christmas Fair. That became a tradition and we have been there 13 times. Our out-of-state tours also include Charlotte, NC, New Haven CT, Chicago IL and Vancouver WA. More about that later on.
Vasa Drängar is the southernmost-located Swedish choir in the United States. We cover a wide range of music and genres, maintaining Swedish tradition in the southeast. On our repertoire list are about 250 songs: spring songs, folk music, traditional Swedish men’s choir songs, Swedish “visor”, national anthems, schnapps songs, popular American and British songs, Christmas songs – in ten languages.
* AUSS
Vasa Drängar joined the American Union of Swedish Singers in 2007. In 2012 we decided to attend their National Convention, an event that takes place every fourth year. This time it was held in New Haven CT. As new members of the AUSS we were invited to entertain during the Opening Night. So we did. Vasa Drängar sang eight songs and our Spex Group (see below) two. We performed for a group of 250 singers. They obviously liked what they saw and heard. Afterwards we heard people saying “This was really impressive!”
The next AUSS convention was held in Lombard, Greater Chicago, in 2016. We performed by ourselves at the “Individual Chorus Night” and also with the AUSS Eastern Division. We of course also were part of the 150-piece large Grand Chorus at the Grand Concert.
The third time we attended the AUSS National Convention was in 2019, this time in Vancouver, WA. We again sang with the AUSS Eastern Division and the Grand Chorus and again performed at the Individual Chorus Night. Because Vasa Drängar this time were not large enough to perform on our own we were lucky to be strengthened by two great Swedish singers, Bengt Olerud from Gävle and Åke Engquist from Stockholm. They both declared that they will join Vasa Drängar at our concert at the AUSS Convention in 2023, that will be held in Atlanta. Our concert at the Individual Chorus Night went very well. Especially the “Getting Tipsy In the Bar”. All of us ended up laying on the floor and it was a big success with the audience.
* SPEX
The Spex Group, 2009-2014, started in order to present some of the Swedish tradition at Universities of creating fun musicals about (often) a historical person. The tradition started in the end of the 19th century, with only men on stage because there were no women students at universities at the time. But that tradition of having only men performing continued and grew. For instance, students at Chalmers University of Technology in Göteborg (not starting until 1948), began to produce a new spex each year, continuing on in this way until 2003. Then they started producing TWO spexes a year, one with only men on stage, as before, but also one with only women. That went on until 2019 when a decision was made to allow both sexes on stage. Vasa Drängar’s spex group consisted of Erik Kind, Sten Ekberg, Magnus Edlund and Göran Rygert, who was involved in Chalmersspexet during his time at Chalmers, picking up repertoire from there. Hans Hörnfeldt joined from time to time. Gabe Granitz was the pianist except in 2014 when Kyle Bennet did the job. We performed at many of Atlanta’s Nordic Lodge (Vasa Order) Scandinavian Show events, as well as in Charlotte and Raleigh, NC; at the AUSS convention in New Haven, CT and at Chalmers’ alumni meetings in Atlanta.
* RECORDINGS
VASA DRÄNGAR’s first and so far only CD is a live recording from our 20th anniversary concert at Winters Chapel UMC in Atlanta, in 2016. It features Vasa Drängar as well as Niklas Björling Rygert, a tenor from the Royal Swedish Opera, Stockholm and an ensemble from Atlanta Balalaika Society orchestra. Jeep Hook, Atlanta, did the recording.
QVARTETTEN has released two CDs: “Ta Dej En Jamare”, 2010, with popular Swedish drinking songs and ending with an excerpt from August Söderman’s “I Bröllopsgården”. The second CD is “Jul, Jul” from 2011 with well-known Swedish Christmas songs. The recordings of both CDs were made by Qvartetten themselves.
All three covers were designed by Pam Minton.
“Jul, Jul” is sold out. The other two CDs are available.
* ASSOCIATION STRUCTURE
In Vasa Drängar’s early years we were not organized as an organization, we had no board of directors, no officers. It was not until 2007 that we voted in Carl Ericsson as our first president and a board of three additional people plus a music director. In 2010 Sten Ekberg took over the president’s duties. In 2020 Jay Lutz became the president and we increased the number of directors to seven. In the beginning of 2021 we became a non-profit entity in Georgia and we were able to open a bank account in the name of Vasa Drängar, Inc. Now is also to become non-profit federally.
Currently the Directors are:
President: Jay Lutz.
Vice President: Sten Ekberg.
Treasurer: Lilian Nordin.
Secretary: Erik Kind.
Master of Ceremonies: Dale Nordin.
Since March 2022 the Conductor and Music Director is Andrew Hershman.
Assistant Music Director and Librarian is Göran Rygert.