Helsinki Complaints Choir

grrlscientist — Sun, 16 May 2010 04:59:30 +0000

tags: Helsinki Complaints Choir, complaints, silly, humor, funny, offbeat, weird, life, life isn't fair, choir, streaming video

This amusing video is a bit of a departure from my usual Sunday morning god-mocking, but since I am in Helsinki right now, I thought you'd appreciate this. Finnish artists Tellervo Kalleinen and Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen collected the pet peeves and angst-ridden pleas of people in Helsinki and then composed this choral work around the list of complaints. Music composed by Esko GrundstrÃ¶m.

grrlscientist Sun, 05/16/2010 - 00:59

There's an entire site devoted to this: http://www.complaintschoir.org

The Helsinki one was apparently the first, but the idea has spread world-wide. Some of the others are apparently sponsored(? perhaps not quite the right word) by the Finnish Embassy as cultural goodwill.

Anyways, I've spent a good part of the afternoon listeningâand laughing at some of the barbs/complaintsâfrom the various Valituskuoroâ¦

Some of my favourites so far (all paraphrased):
Chicago:
âThere are too many people waiting for rapture
to do anything about Global Warming.â
Budapest:
âEven Vonnegut's dead.â
Singapore:
âWe need a permit to sing our complaints in public.â (The day before they were due to perform, the Singapore choir was denied a permit to perform in public.)

At least one, Jerusalem, was so badly filmed with smudged subtitles I couldn't work out what they were singing.

Thanks! (Or some I be complaining? I was intending to do something else this afternoonâ¦!Â Â ;-\Â )

Complaints Choir doc film screening near you, or on DVD on Smog Veil out in August or September.