Synopsis
The Finnish Screaming Male Choir, Mieskuoro Huutajat, dressed in black suits, white shirts and rubber ties is a unique choir that performs its repertoire by shouting and screaming. Led by the conductor Petri Sirviö, the choir has travelled during fifteen years of existence from an idea in a bar table all the way to the front line of modern European performing arts, receiving the same strong reactions everywhere: the audience has been mostly exalted, and sometimes also shocked and bewildered. The appeal of the performance of Huutajat is based on combinations of strong contrasts. The disciplined and smartly dressed male choir shouts patriotic songs and marches as well as children’s songs in original languages. Exact articulation mixed with howling and comical expressions turns into serious without a warning. Their versions of national anthems of different countries do not always make everybody happy. When Huutajat was performing at the Museum of Modern Art in Paris, both the museum and the Finnish embassy tried to prevent them from performing the French national anthem. When Huutajat was performing in Iceland where it is prohibited by the law to perform the national anthem in any other version than the original, they had to find an alternative solution.