Eva Toller

Life

Born: 1959

About my country:

I am a Swede, living in Sweden. We are a very small country (as are also our Nordic neighbours) and our language is spoken by relatively few people. Thus, we tend to learn, speak, and write English quite well, since we cannot make ourselves understood otherwise. (However, we usually can understand - and be understood - by Danes and Norwegians, and many Finns also understand some Swedish).

To find out more about Sweden, the best way is probably to visit: http://www.sweden.se/

Choral-wise, Sweden has quite a strong tradition. It started with men's university choirs in the early 19th century. The most common choir type nowadays is the mixed choir; women's choirs are still more unusual than other choir types.

About me:

I frequently arrange any types of songs that I like and have specific ideas about. The ideas come in several ways. I may be inspired by the melody or the lyrics; I may think of a certain theme in the song, that I want to elaborate. I may want to make variations of the lyrics or arrange the song in a new way stylistically - for example, make jazz of a folk song.

Another motivation I have, especially for making arrangements for women's choir, is that it is often very hard to find a cappella arrangements for this type of choir.

Personally, I dislike the "primadonna trend" among composers and conductors. I think the attention should be primarily on the music - it will still be there after the composers are dead and (in many cases) forgotten. I am the servant of the music, not the other way around. Thus, I have a little difficulty with giving detailed biographical information about myself (I don't think my life would be very interesting for others to read about, and I don't want to become a "celebrity", although I'm of course happy when my music is sung and appreciated).

My musical background:

In the municipal music school, I studied piano, recorder, and violin (somewhat). I have kept playing the piano, and taught myself to play the guitar (mostly chord playing as accompaniment to song, but also some "finger play").

When I was around 25 years old, I started to take singing lessons, and did that for approximately seven years (with frequent breaks for a year or a half each). About the same time, I started to sing in a women's choir for students. I have sung in women's and mixed choirs since then (also here with some breaks), both in church choirs and secular choirs.

Concerning my knowledge in arranging choral music:

I am mostly an auto-didact (my formal education is short: half a semester of basic music theory at the university). I try to transform the practical knowledge I get as a choral singer to arrangements that are (hopefully!) fun to sing.

Life

List of choral works

Original compositions

Arrangements by Eva Toller

Publications

External links