The Cantores Minores Choir celebrated its 45th Anniversary with a concert tour to the States last October. The touring group consisted of about 70 singers aged 9-22 and seven adults. The tour schedule planned by Executive Director Jukka-Pekka Mäki-Luopa and Intendant Pirkko-Leena Otonkoski allowed us to see many interesting places in different parts of the huge country. Therefore the expectations were high before the departure — and not only in an artistical sense.

We started our long journey on October 9th. The smallest boys had much to be excited about; after all, to many of them this was the first trip abroad with the choir. We flew via New York City to Washington D.C. and spent the first few days of the tour enjoying the sights and the cosmopolitan atmosphere of the capital. Capitol Hill, The White House and Lincoln Memorial were some of the places already familiar to us from TV. One third of our group had a chance to see the local ice-hockey team Washington Capitals' opening game of the season against Anaheim Mighty Ducks. The experience was great, especially since we were able to meet 'the Finnish Flash' Teemu Selänne of Anaheim at the post-game reception. The game itself didn't offer us that much: only one goal was scored, the 'Caps' won 1-0 over the Mighty Ducks. The 20,000 home team supporters were thrilled, of course, and the noise deafening!

Teemu Selänne after the game.

The musical highlight of our visit to Washington D.C. took place on Oct. 12. We had the honor to hold a concert at the architecturally famous Embassy of Finland which has established a reputation as a venue for high-quality concerts. Before this we had already given the first concert of the tour in McLean, Virginia (very close to Washington D.C.) — at that time we may still have suffered from jetlag, but in the embassy concert there was absolutely no sign of fatigue in our appearance and the performance was a success. The prestigious audience expressed its satisfaction at the reception arranged after the concert. We were also able to give a recital at the Washington National Cathedral in the same way as on our previous U.S. tours in 1982, 1988 and 1993. The staff of the Finnish embassy took so good care of us during our stay that it almost felt sad to leave.

Cantores Minores boys at the Finnish Embassy.

On Oct. 13 we left the capital and flew to the charming city of Charleston, South Carolina. We had quite a busy schedule during the whole tour and we noticed that especially in Charleston — we arrived to the Charleston's heat (over 30ºC) at 2.30 pm, gave probably the best concert of the tour at 8 pm and in the morning headed for the airport! During the almost 3-week tour we flew thousands of miles and saw about a dozen airports, but fortunately everything went well. No flights were cancelled and nobody's luggage got lost. Despite all the hurry, we did have enough time for a sightseeing in Charleston. The city is very beautifully located on the Atlantic coast and it certainly would have been a pity to come there without being able to see anything.

Las Vegas.

From the east coast of the country we traveled across the continent to the gambling paradise of Las Vegas, Nevada. Before continuing by bus to St. George, Utah, we had fun marveling at the luxurious casinos and hotels that touched the sky in the middle of desert. They seemed to be ripped from another world! Utah was interesting, too, thanks to its impressive nature. We visited the gorgeous Zion National Park on our free-time. Our next stop was Phoenix, Arizona. The route from Utah to Phoenix goes by Grand Canyon, so we naturally had to see it, too. And we were not disappointed, the views were awesome. Mother Nature also showed us how swiftly the weather can change: on our way to Grand Canyon we unexpectedly saw snow and soon after that the temperature rose to 30ºC/90ºF!

Grand Canyon, a work of art by the nature.

We were invited to Phoenix to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the Phoenix Boys Choir together with a German boys' choir, Limburger Domsingknaben. In three days we had several joint concerts. Our host families were more than hospitable and there really was nothing to complain about: we truly enjoyed the sunshine and the host families' swimming pools! Phoenix was a nice place with all those palm trees and cactuses reminding us of the 'Wild West'.

The Head Prefect relaxing in the Phoenix heat!

We already were quite used to traveling with Delta Air Lines at the time we again boarded a Delta plane in Phoenix in order to fly via Salt Lake City to San Francisco. Salt Lake City, the host for the 2002 Olympic Winter Games, was an interesting place to see — and a beautiful one. We spent three days in sunny San Francisco and gave two joint concerts with the local boys' choirs in downtown 'Frisco' and Berkeley. We had enough time to enjoy a cablecar ride! After seeing the city and its skyline from the Golden Gate and Oakland Bridge, it wasn't difficult to believe why San Francisco has been said to be one of America's most beautiful cities.

The magnificent trip was about to come to an end soon. Not even the smallest boys appeared to suffer from any homesickness — obviously we had so much to do that they just didn't have time for something like that! Parents and other interested in Finland and all over the world were able to follow the events of our tour via Internet, thanks to our special tour site , which was updated daily. Unfortunately we didn't have enough time to translate the reports in English during the tour, but the contents of the site will be translated later.

The last stop of our unforgettable tour was in the northeastern part of the States, namely in Ohio. At 6 am in the morning, the Delta flight DL338 took off and we flew over Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois and Indiana to Cincinnati (Ohio) where we changed the plane in order to continue to Cleveland which is situated by the vast Lake Erie. The founder of the Cantores Minores Choir, Mrs. Ruth-Esther Hillilä, had invited 'her' choir to the Cleveland area to her little home town Fairport Harbor that is still nowadays a center of the local lively community of the Finnish immigrants. We were received with the utmost hospitality and gave successful concerts both in Fairport and Painsville. The Finlandia Hymn moved the audience to tears...

The concert in Fairport Harbor is over.

The last concert of the tour was held in Lakeland Community College in the same area. Our long journey got a successful end in the colourful fall sceneries of Ohio. Our conductor, professor Christian Hauschild was satisfied with the results of the tour. Everything had gone better than we could have hoped for thanks to the carefully planned arrangements and the strong team spirit of the whole group. On a foggy Tuesday morning, Oct. 27, we arrived home after 17-hour trip — tired but happy! We had experienced quite a lot. Once more echoed the melody of the song 'America, the beautiful', this time at Helsinki-Vantaa Airport to the delight of the parents who had come to pick us up.

The Cantores Minores' 33rd concert tour abroad was a success. We had big and enthusiastic audiences in all corners of the States and were always received with overwhelming friendliness. Staying at local host families gave us an opportunity to see everyday American life and offered both our boys and their hosts great experiences to cherish in the future. We feel we have again acted as good 'ambassadors' of the Finnish culture — the truth is, of course, that few Americans know anything of the country called Finland. Hopefully some people have better knowledge after this tour.

Nov. 25, 1998 Pasi Mustonen