There is Room, There is Love

Ali Froslie ’18
Content Specialist, Communications and Marketing, Concordia College
Major: English Writing

“Love” is a word I’ve always associated with choir.

I’ve said it often enough: “I love choir.” “I love singing.” “I love being an alto.” “I love my choir friends.”

And now — eight years out of college, I still love choir, even if I haven’t sung in one since my final concert senior year. That’s a big reason why, when the opportunity arose, I jumped headfirst at the opportunity to accompany The Concordia Choir on the ensemble’s international tour to Norway in May 2025.

As staff, it was my responsibility to gather stories, pictures, and videos of the choir’s time abroad. I expected to love my time there. After all, I’ve always wanted to go to Norway, and (as previously mentioned) I love choir. I was excited to visit the land where my ancestors were born, listen to beautiful music, and share the experience with the Cobber community.

Despite my excitement, as I arrived in Norway, I was feeling the weight of a world at odds. The headlines were getting grimmer by the day, and I was finding it increasingly difficult to find the belief that people are, at their hearts, good. I was feeling world weary in a way I hadn’t felt before.

But I also knew what choir and music could do to a person. I had hope that traveling with the choir could provide a bright spot in my darkening worldview. I had enough memories, enough snapshots of my time in Chapel Choir to know that performing and creating music was a uniquely special opportunity — an opportunity you can’t understand unless you’ve felt the power of many voices rising together to create song.

After landing in Oslo on May 9, I spent my first few days acclimating to the rhythm of choir tour. I never traveled internationally with the choir, but I settled back into the rhythm of the tour quickly. Terms like “animal bus” and “people bus” didn’t have to be explained (for the first time in my life, I rode on the “animal” bus, devoting myself to the illusion I was more extroverted than I am). It felt strange to not be participating in robe transportation or setting up audio equipment — the students were a well-oiled machine. I had once been a cog in that machine, but now I was just an observer.

Nevertheless, I was surprised by how quickly I was welcomed into the fold. Students introduced themselves to me. They were more friendly and open than what I’d expected. Throughout the trip, I was reminded over and over of a sign that hung in the classroom of Carly Grandner ’14 when I interviewed her a few years ago. The sign, taped on her office door, read: “love grows best in choir.”

I observed that over and over.

On my first full day in Norway, the students shared the stage with local Oslo choral group Schola Cantorum. After the concert, the two ensembles ran to each other — I couldn’t tell who was more excited to compliment the other.

“You were incredible!”

“No, you were incredible.”

It was a joy to see these people who had never met (and likely will never meet again) immediately connect. It was like the two ensembles were old friends.

In Lillehammer, we received a uniquely warm welcome and another local partnership — the choir’s performance was preceded by a local men’s chorus. There were young men, old men (the conductor joked that some of the men had been there for all of the group’s 200-year history). Some reminded me of my grandpa.

The conductor of the men’s chorus whipped out a nose flute to accompany his singers. Laughter. The Concordia Choir sang Edvard Grieg. Tears. A Concordia alumna who now lives in Lillehammer showed her baby to choir conductor Dr. Michael Culloton ’98. The students made skits for Instagram on the lawn.

And I watched the students take it all in. As they sang and played, I saw them create memories of their time together. They cared for one another, taking each other’s hands and walking together through each new experience. I hoped each day would bring new memories that could fuel their souls when the world feels dark.

One afternoon, I found myself walking next to Kathy Benson ’64 as we approached the ruins of an ancient cathedral in Hamar. She pointed ahead at the glass structure that kept the ruins safe and recalled the last time she had been here with the choir in the ’70s. I turned toward her; I hadn’t realized this wasn’t her first time here. Kathy continued the story — it had been a day much like the one we were experiencing, gray and rainy. But years ago, as the choir sang “O Day Full of Grace” in the glass cathedral, the clouds broke and the sun shone on the choir just as they sang the phrase “endless light.”

I could tell she could see the memory just as if it had happened yesterday. I got chills listening to her talk about it. I already had a dozen snapshot memories of my own from the trip — the yellow of a dandelion against the deep blue velvet of the choir robes. Students running to embrace the young alumni who came to see them sing. Family members from Norway meeting their students, sometimes for the first time.

There were many alumni present on the tour as well, coming along as members of the “companion tour” that was led by the alumni office. Throughout the week, they told me stories that indicated to me that they hadn’t forgotten their own time with the choir and still felt the magnetic and moving energy that happens when making music together.

By the time we were in Bergen, the students knew I was looking for any special story I could get my hands on. After the concert, a student came up to me as I lingered in the church, trying to hang on to the last tendrils of music reverberating around the room.

“Let me introduce you to someone,” he said. “I think you’ll want to meet them.”

He brought us outside, and we approached two people chatting. The first was Lyndon Johnson ’78, a Concordia graduate who sang in The Concordia Choir in 1979. He was speaking to a Norwegian woman who had been in the audience for that concert in ’79. Even after all these years, she remembered the experience enough to come back to hear The Concordia Choir sing again.

Johnson hugged the woman before he left. They had been strangers only minutes before.

Later that evening, I sat at a restaurant with other young Cobber alumni. It was a random group — a few of us had graduated around the same time, and a few were younger alumni who were spending the year after their graduation traveling the world. The recent grads asked the rest of us if we’d been friends in college.

“I think there’s something about being a Cobber,” one of my classmates said. “We didn’t know each other well in college, but we’re bonded just by being Cobbers and former choir students.”

She said it better than I ever could. We all had a special bond, despite not knowing each other that well prior to the trip. Choir does that to a person.

Choir does that to a person.

Most nights, the choir sang “There is Room, There is Love,” by Sandra Peter. They sang over and over, “there is room, there is love for everyone.” To me, the song was a plea for a more peaceful, more loving world. It became a staunch welcome to all who are broken and weary — sit here and stay awhile. Rest. I imagined the choir’s song wrapping around everyone in the audience, inviting the love within each person to grow.

As I listened to the song, suddenly I didn’t feel so hopeless. I remembered my last Christmas concert as a student, tears filling my eyes at the end of a crescendo. At the time, I grieved that I didn’t know when I’d be able to lend my voice to such an incredible sound again. Maybe that was the last time but, as I sat in the balcony, hiding away with my phone to record the songs to share with folks back home, I let the song wash over me. While I wasn’t singing, I could feel little parts of myself healing nevertheless. I could see it on the students’ faces: They really meant every word they sang.

As each concert ended, the students embraced each other, often in tears. I had not considered the emotion I would feel too. I was overwhelmed with gratitude — for the way the students had immediately accepted me, the stranger in their midst, and for the way they cared for each other on and off the stage. For this experience to reflect on my own time in choir. To meet so many new and interesting people — from Paul, the artist, to Peer, our bus driver.

And to better understand my past, present, and future. To better understand where my ancestors came from, to be reminded of the generosity and kindness in my life today, and to return home with a renewed hope for the future. These young people will go out and change the world with the understanding that there is room. For each other, for the world.

There is room for kindness and community, and there is love all around us.

Read a choir student’s journal of the tour

^{Published December 2025}