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Complaining in Harmony
Abstract: People love to complain, people love to sing. What happens when they do both at the same time?
Valituskuoro is a Finnish expression meaning complaints choir, a concept that many Lutherans will grasp intuitively.
Not long ago, however, Helsinki artists Tellervo Kalleinen and Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen undertook the project of creating a literal complaints choir. After presenting their idea at a number of events, the first complaints choir was realized in Birmingham, U.K.
Singers were recruited. Complaints were solicited, compiled, and set to music. After some rehearsal time, public performances were arranged and the choir sang its litany of complaints for an audience.
Set to music and sung by a choir, some complaints achieved a dignity they would lack in regular conversation: The bus is too infrequent at 6:30. Others were revealed to be petty (No one shares their biscuits.), and a few (Sex pressure is too low.) remained enigmatic.
The singers achieve a certain catharsis, and the performance guarantees that the complaints have an audience.
Complaints choirs have begun to spring up in other cities: Helsinki, St. Petersburg, Pittsburgh, Jerusalem, Juneau, Chicago. Naturally, there's a web site: Complaint Choirs of the World.
Perhaps the 2009 Churchwide Assembly could feature an ELCA Complaints Choir?
