USA vs Europe

So I am back in Sweden now, and trying to get back into everyday stuff here. It is great to meet my wife and daughters again, of course! No matter where you go in the world -family is the most important!

I don't have time to write about all the impressions after the Gospel Music Workshop of America, but I can't help comparing it to the different gospel festivals we have in Europe. The GMWA is much older than anything we have over here, and we have so much to learn from them when it comes to singing and making music. The different teachers and instructors I met in Florida humbled me in many ways, and I realize that there are still so many things for me to learn!

But I also see clearly that we can teach our american friends a lot of things. The GMWA is struggling with decreasing number of participants, and there is a lot of criticism towards the organization of it. Here in Europe there are so many young gospel festivals where the organization works very well, and each year more people attend the festivals. Maybe the board of the GMWA should send some people over here to check out why these kind of festivals pop up all over Europe and increase in popularity constantly?

Storm

I am stuck at Tampa airport because of a storm. Waiting I boring. There are some other people from the gospel festival here, so we try to enjoy ourselves, but everybody is very tired. The GMWA has music and seminars from 7.30 in the morning until 3 the next morning. So it is hard to stay awake now.

I am hoping to meet my friend Walt in Chicago tonight, but all flights are delayed. We will see how it goes.

Birthday in Norway

Today I miss a birthday party for two of my best friends in Norway. I just want to shout "HAPPY BIRTHDAY" across the Atlantic ocean!

James Cleveland songs

Last night was the last official night of the GMWA. It was not the usual final service, but instead a James Cleveland memorial service, which meant that the mass choir was singing only songs written by James Cleveland. In my opinion it was the best evening of the week, because even though I am a swedish person I could feel history in the air as the whole auditorium was singing along with the choir. If you know my music, you know that I usually prefer modern gospel, but I never stopped loving the old songs, and when they are sung like they were yesterday it is a beautiful feeling! I heard some songs that my old choir, Joybells, recorded in the 70's.

Kirk Franklin and the others

Last night was the concert with big names here at the festival. It was supposed to start at 23.00, or 11PM as they say over here, but it started after midnight. I was very tired and some of the artists that were singing made me more tired. Not because they were bad or boring, but because they screaming to a singback tape. I am swedish and swedish people usually don't appreciate singback artists. But not all evening was like that. James Hall was there with his church choir, and he was crazy and energetic as usual. What really reached me was a performance with Jessica Ready. She's new to this scene, but had a great voice and great personality. My friend Myron Butler did great, but Kirk Franklin was the best as usual. He finished the whole concert around 2.30 in the night, together with the young adult choir from GMWA. He had not prepared anything, except "Smile", so he did the songs that we requested from the audience. It was pretty cool!

Teaching my song

I have had some Internet problems, so I could not blog yesterday. But now I have taught my song "We pray" to the GMWA mass choir, and today we recorded it for the CD. It was of course a very special experience to teach this to one of the biggest african-american gospel music festivals. Since I was at GMWA in 2008 I had an idea about how to prepare myself, and I think I made it work. The choir seemed to like it and they sounded great. But I've got a message to all of you who sang "We pray" in Hannover 2008 -you did better! ;)

A bonus for me was to hang out with Mrs Avis Graves from Charlotte, NC. She used to come to Stockholm Gospel festival, before I knew that gospel would be my life. Next year we will work together in Italy. So many exciting things happen when you work for the Lord!

Nervous?

Today I will meet the mass choir for the first time as a director. I will teach my song "We pray". On monday and tuesday it seemed like the singers were tired off and on. I don't know if it was because of the heat, or because they did not like the songs. So I wonder if I will make them fall asleep with my song, or if I hit the nerve that makes them tick. Either way I am going to do my best, and have fun with it!

Why am I here?

I have been to some seminars here at the GMWA and I always end up talking to a lot of people when the seminar is over. To me it's getting clear that my purpose for being at GMWA this year is to be a part of the bridge building between cultures and continents. The class I attended this morning addressed these things and I hope they will let me add my knowledge from Europe as the class continues tomorrow and thursday.

Peace

Birthday

It is monday morning in Florida, and today is the day when the GMWA really kicks off. Many seminars to choose from and lots of concerts to attend. Today is also my birthday, and I think the artists that come here to perform this week are a birthday gift to me. How about names like Kirk Franklin, John P. Kee, Dorinda Clark-Dole, James Fortune, Rance Allen Group, James Hall, the Chosen Aggregation, Norman Hutchins and many more. I think it will be a good week!

Yesterday I met only one friend from the past, but I made some new friends. The program was a little slow in my opinion, probably because many people consider today the first day of "action".

The best birthday gift was a gift from my daughter Stella that she had hidden in my bag without my knowledge. Two drawings that I now have on the wall in my hotel room. One is a drawing of "I (heart) U" and the other is a drawing of Hello Kitty, where the kitty flirts with one eye and gives me a thumbs up. It's so good to be reminded that the most important thing in life is not to succeed at GMWA, it's to be the father and husband I want and need to be. GMWA is great, but family is life!

GMWA in Tampa, Florida

It is Sunday in Tampa, Florida. I have just decided to blog about this week on the Praise Unit blog, because I think there will be some experiences here worth sharing with other people. The reason for my presence here is the GMWA, Gospel Music Workshop of America. They invited me to teach one of my songs, "We pray", to the mass choir. Yesterday I just a day of registration and a very nice evening service. Today I sleep past the morning service, but there will be more to come after lunch.

I think my preparations for this week was possibly the worst ever. First I spent half of the night between wednesday and thursday packing. On the night between thursday and friday I had a concert at Frizon with Praise Unit. The concert started at 1 in the morning, and when I got back home it was time to head for the airport and leave for Florida. On the flight I was unfortunate with the seating, because I got the middle seat, and you know what that means? If you want to sleep you have to choose between resting your head on the Anthony Hopkins look-alike to your left, or the computer game obsessed kid to your right, or your own chest. Neither is good for sleeping.

But now I have slept two nights here, and I actually feel pretty good. I have to leave now, but I will write again tomorrow.