Revels BLOG: The Lullaby in the Parking Lot

Written by Nicole Galland

Nicole Galland is a New York Times bestselling novelist, an alto, a playwright, and the dramaturg of this year’s Midwinter Revels script. She is also in this year’s Midwinter Revels Strålande Chorus.

I’m delighted to be singing in the Midwinter Revels 2025 chorus. I hadn’t gotten into the previous Scandinavian Revels in 2018, when I auditioned. I’d been very bummed.  While nursing my bruised ego, I saw that the Revels music director at the time, Megan Henderson, had posted a YouTube video on social media of the vocal group Arstidir walking into a cavernous train station, standing in a circle, and singing a transfixing, ethereal song –  the Icelandic lullaby “Heyr Himna Smiður.”  Megan was excited to share that this song would be featured in the 2018 show. The show I hadn’t gotten into.

I watched the video, at once entranced and heartbroken. “Well of course I didn’t get into the show this year,” I thought. “I mean, sheesh, I can’t do that. I suck.” I have a theatre background; I know I can do some things well… but what happened on that video was pure magic. It was beyond me. I lacked the competency.

Then Megan phoned me to say one of the altos had to drop out, and I was the first alternate. I was overjoyed… but also, I felt like an imposter.

Rehearsals began. As the chorus worked our way through the songs, the imposter syndrome cleared up a little… until we got to “Heyr Himna Smiðdur.” This was, after all, the one I would never be able to sing while standing in a circle in a cavernous stone structure, like you’re supposed to. I assumed the rest of the chorus were meeting up at train stations all over the greater Boston area and effortlessly belting out “Heyr Himna” together, without asking me to join them, since I obviously couldn’t swing it.

It’s okay. I learned it fine. I sang it fine on stage. I sang all the other stuff on stage as well. I still felt a little bit like an imposter, but nobody seemed to mind. Revels folks are nice that way.

The show opened. The run was going well. Frequently, post-performance, the chorus would go out to a pub and then walk back to the concrete garage where we had free parking.

Lyle Bibler, who sang bass, was a sound engineer. The man knows his acoustics.  One evening, as a few of us were walking through the garage, Lyle said, “Hey, you know what would sound amazing in here? Heyr Himna!” 

He had a mic with him – not one of his better ones, but good enough to capture the sound. 

Oh my gosh! Heyr Himna! Like Arstidir in the train station! But that’s a thing I knew I was incapable of doing, so as the rest moved into an impromptu circle, I decided to step back and leave my part to my fellow altos…

…Except there were no other altos in the group with us. 

I had to do the thing I’d known for months I could not do. 

I did it. 

Nora, an alto, came out of the elevator near the end and joined us, to my immense relief. Her arrival felt like the cosmos rewarding me for saying yes despite my fear of failure.

We sounded pretty good. I was shaking by the end of it, but we sounded pretty good.

By the following evening, we’d talked it up so excitedly that about half the chorus arranged to go to the parking garage together, post pub, to sing Heyr Himna. Lyle brought a better mike, and with more voices, who were more prepared, we were better than merely “pretty good.” People pulled out their phones and recorded it. It was a peak experience for everyone, and it’s wonderful that all these years later, there are still videos of that magical second night. 

But for myself, the smaller group the first night had been the real peak experience. Because over the course of two slow-galloping minutes, I changed from being a person who couldn’t do something beautiful to being the person who had just done it. Such a transformation could never have happened without the particular magic of the Revels community.