Creative Word and Tone – Keys to Peace

Warmly welcome to the International Singing Conference VIII on 28 July – 1 August 2027 in Helsinki. This time, the conference is organized in co-operation with Snellman College in a seaside atmosphere on its beautiful campus.

In music, the eight tone is the octave, a repetition of the tonic at a higher frequency, which also completes the musical scale. As a psycho-spiritual experience, the octave represents an individual´s profound self-awareness, a return home, and a spiritual awakening.

The fundamental tone, the prime, of the International Singing Conferences, was sounding in Lahti in 1987 when Jürgen Schriefer served as a lecturer, focusing on the biography of Valborg Werbeck-Svärdström as a spiritual foundation stone of this singing school. In his last articles in 2004, Jürgen Schriefer talks about ”the meaning of the logos arts” as well as about the mutual relations between speech, eurythmy and singing. In these arts, the human being is the instrument itself, engaging in an inspiring, artistic interaction with the creative word and tone as potential keys to peace.

Inspired by these parting words, the octave of the singing conferences is dedicated to the encounter between these three arts, to dialogue, and to the possibilities for colloboration. Instead of traditional workshops and singing groups, each art form has his own dedicated morning, featuring a presentation and artistic exercises.

The singing is led by one of the longest-serving and most experienced teachers of Werbeck singing, singer and singing teacher Christiaan Boele, and the speech by the speech and drama artist Agnes Zehnter who is a co-worker in the Section of the Speaking and  Performing Arts at the Goetheanum and is founder and head of the training amwort in Dornach. We get to explore eurythmy under the guidance of a creative and inspiring singer and eurythmist Anja Riska. The keynote presentations will be given by Johannes Greiner, a pianist, eurythmist, educator and writer who is responsible for the music in the Section of the Speaking and Performing Arts at the Goetheanum.

We would like to thank the Signe and Ane Gyllenberg Foundation for their support!