National Geographic Music (National Geographic)

Editor's Note: This summer Nat Geo Music made our annual visit to Norway's stellar Førde Folk Music Festival - which took place just weeks before Anders Bering Breivik's senseless and tragic acts of terror in Oslo. So, in solidarity with the people of Norway, we sent special correspondent Evangeline Kim back to Norway to cover this year's annual Folkelarm festival, which took place in Oslo in the last weekend of September - and to once again experience the true face of Norway: gracious, welcoming, tolerant, generous and unbowed by terror.

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The opening of the 6th edition of Folkelarm, Norway's Scandinavian folk music showcase festival in Oslo, September 29th - October 1st, coincided with the country's Fårikål Feast Day. Fårikål is the country's traditional lamb and cabbage casserole: long-simmered in salty broth and spiked with lots of whole black peppercorns. Thanks to Lene Furuli who runs the Solidmusikk agency, a few early-arriving delegates got to sample the specialty she'd prepared.

Just as the rich yet simple dish that originated in Western fjord mountain farms signals the beginning of autumn in Norway, Folkelarm represented a veritable annual harvest of some of Scandinavia's best talent, carefully selected through jury-application process.

Nat Geo Music actually flew in a full day earlier before the showcase festival to explore the world-famous Norsk Folkemuseum and Viking Ships Museum as prelude to Folkelarm, but more about these great museums in Oslo later as well as some ground-breaking health benefit news about Norway's famed Gamalost cheese.

Folkelarm took place at the spacious 4-storied Riksscenen, Norway's newer, impressive national performance hub dedicated to mostly traditional music and dance with 3 theater spaces, and ample seminar and workshop spaces. The cornucopia event was filled with informative seminars, a trade fair, and 18 different folk acts from Norway, Sweden and Finland, two of whose line-ups included ex-pat musicians from Senegal, Mexico, Chile, Argentina, and Bosnia. There is increasingly, salutary recognition throughout Scandinavia of musicians and cultures from newer immigrant communities who carry rich diversities of instrumentation and musical languages.

Linda Dyrnes, Director of FolkOrg, the umbrella organization that promotes Folkelarm stated: "There are many reasons for why we promote Folkelarm. Above all it's about showcasing the artists of the genre for a domestic and an international audience. We want to help build a foundation for professional artists of Norwegian and Nordic traditional music and dance, on which they can continue building their own career. Like most music industry conventions, Folkelarm spins around the idea of the benefits of professional networking.
But just as important is the publicity Folkelarm offers, as we put a lot of effort into marketing and working with media."

And Trond Stenseth Moe, Folkelarm's Project Manager, continued: "We genuinely feel that more people should hear the music, because there's a lot of good, interesting music coming out of the Norwegian and Nordic folk music scene at the moment. While Norwegian jazz music has been making a name for itself outside Norway for some time? there's a growing interest and awareness of our traditional music as well. We see a younger generation of Norwegian musicians, many of them with higher education in music, who are working with the material of traditional music, and both preserving and processing it with great musicality. It's an exciting time for us!"

Folkelarm's festival event started off with an afternoon seminar by Fiona Talkington, BBC Radio 3's "Late Junction" popular radio host: "Everything you wanted to know about Norwegian folk music, but were afraid to ask!" Ms. Talkington, who is a long-time enthusiast and advocate of Nordic music, collaborated with Tellef Kvifte, Professor of Folk Music at Oslo University, who added informative historical background to her presentation. The session was a lively one with a sing-a-long and dance lessons for the international delegates by the delightful singer Camilla Granlien, and incredibly graceful dancer Tor Stallvik, with accompaniments by the beguiling fiddler Aslak O. Brimi.

Early in the evening, the 2011 Folkelarmprisen (Norwegian Folk Music Awards) ceremony took place in the packed to capacity Riksscenen amphitheater. The winners were: Folk Musician of the Year - Musician and Composer Gabriel Fliflet and founder of Bergen's Colombi Egg; Solo - Synnøve S. Bjørset / Åse Teigland / Anne Hytta (Dei Beste Damene) - "Soli" (ta:lik); Traditional - P.A. Røstads Orkester - Fjellfiolen (P.A. Røstads Orkester); Open Class - Karl Seglem - "Ossicles" (NORCD); and Documentation - Various artists - "Recordings from The Norwegian Broadcasting Company Archive" - DVD (ta:lik).

Following the awards, the fine, young Norwegian folk singer and musician, multi-award winner Kim Andre Rysstad from Setesdal, delivered a moving concert with special guest vocalist Berit Opheim and band members on guitars, double bass, and percussion. Possessing a gentle heart-tugging tenor, Mr. Rysstad's tender, wistful singing seems poised for greater appeal with international folk audiences.

The 18 festival showcases on Friday and Saturday evenings ran each night from 6 pm - midnight in half hour sets culminating in jubilant dance parties. Eager crowds shuttled back and forth between the Hovedsalen amphitheater on the second floor to the two smaller Klubbscenen and Intimscenen performance stage rooms below the ground floor.

The whole event ambiance felt like a celebratory home-coming for the world, filled with the kind of heart-felt warmth and sense of nostalgia one encounters in great Scandinavian folk music. The variety and excellence in performances provided superb listening opportunities to compare regional and local styles and tunings especially with the favored fiddle.

Folkelarm Friday Night Showcases:

The large Hovedsalen amphitheater held a succession of spectacular performances. The debonair and amusing, deep baritone Aasmund Nordstoga, self-titled as "a singer-songwriter, traditional singer, and farmer" from Telemark, teamed up with the band members known as Abildsø Spelemannslag, expert players of an array of instruments including guitar, banjo, mandola, fiddles, jew's harp, accordion, auto-harp, harmonium, harmonica, and double bass. Segments of his concert started off with slow, loping intros or rippling ostinatos, though the group soon leapt into gleeful, toe-tapping dance melodies and rhythms, sweeping round and round.

The dazzling multi-national trio - Ellika/Solo/Rafael - comprising the Senegalese griot kora player Solo Cissokho (based in Norway), Swedish fiddler Ellika Frisell, and Mexican percussionist Rafael Sida held the crowds awe-struck with their most unusual collaboration. They successfully created a rousing blend of Mr. Cissokho's trilling 4 beat Manden melodies, Ms. Frisell's elegant 3 beat dance rhythms, as Mr. Sida punctuated and fired up the duo's harmonically intense dialogue.

Much earlier in the afternoon at the Finnish-Norwegian Cultural Institute, we saw the radiant and exhilarating fiddler Ragnhild Furebotten in trio with a guitarist and tuba-player in double concert with one of Finland's great fiddlers, Arto Järvelä. But during her Folkelarm showcase, she unveiled her newest recording achievement, "Never on a Sunday." It's a hands-down winner and WOMEX attendees this year will have the chance to see her newest creation live. She plays her fiddle in fulsome and swelling orchestration with a six-member brass band, trumpets, saxophones, trombone and tuba.

The architecture in the amphitheater has been cleverly constructed to accommodate a massive dance party, and the multi-tiered seating was folded back in the towering room to welcome one of Sweden's hugely popular folk instrumental groups, Harv. They released their first album in 1997 originally as a duo of fiddlers, Daniel Sandén-Warg and Magnus Stinnerbom, and by now have expanded as a quintet with Christian Svensson on percussion, Roger Tallroth (Vasen fame) on guitar, and Sondre Meisfjord (Germund Larsen Trio) on double bass. Harv is a thundering high-octane dance band. They had the entire room whirling and twirling, skipping and hopping, and whooping away non-stop in a wild mix of Reinlander and polka steps.

Meanwhile downstairs, there were both sprightly and contemplative performances. Norway's Ugagn trio, formed just last year, is a promising newcomer with a repertoire mostly rooted in Setesdal. It features Sigrid Berg, daughter of famed folk singer Kirsten Bråten Berg, the Hardanger fiddler Erik Sollid (Valkyrien Allstars fame), and guitarist Bård Bjørke who adds flamenco and jazz flourishes to the quietly traditional sound of the group.

Two of Norway's most entertaining and talented fiddlers, Aslak O. Brimi and Erlend Viken as a duo thoroughly captivated the room with traditional dance melodies and a couple of melancholy interludes. They performed in front of amusing screened images of early photographs of Norwegian folk dancing and farming life, in partial homage to days gone by, yet their tradition-bearing delivery was so fresh, it was easy to understand how the beloved tunes have lasted over decades.

Finland's diatonic accordion player extraordinaire, Antti Paalanen, who will also perform at WOMEX this year, has renamed his instrument "The Breathbox," title too of his recent solo CD. His performance must be seen live, as he slowly stretches and compresses his instrument like an otherworldly, writhing reptile. His extended repetitive huffing chords along with end-of-phrase curlicue embellishments or broad puffing sounds mesmerized the audience into a trance-like state, almost reminiscent of Philip Glass or Steve Reich compositions.

Nordik Tree is a super virtuosic trio of two Finns, fiddler and mandolin player Arto Järvelä and Timo Alakotila on harmonium and piano, and one Swede, fiddler and viola player Hans Kennemark. Mr. Järvelä and Mr. Alakotila, members of the legendary progressive folk group, JPP, happened to meet Mr. Kennemark who was with Forsmark III in a jam session some years ago, and audiences were so enthusiastic about the musical encounter, they began to perform and record together in 2004. No doubt, the group's brilliant, new compositions that explore traditional music from Sweden and Finland are yielding a greater symphonic sum of combined genius. They are a joy to watch and hear.

The charming Jorun Marie Kvernberg, gifted young fiddler and singer presented solo music from her district in Møre and Romsdal, and introduced each with its associated story. Ms. Kvernberg is very much in demand for her distinctive, assertive style and sparkling stage presence: she's a member of the Tindra Trio and the Majorstuen collective. To be in her presence is to become spellbound by the magic of the vivid folk tale she spins before playing its "soundtrack."

Jan Beitohaugen Granli who hails from Valdres in Norway is a much-admired young master fiddler to watch and marvel over. His bowing style is one of the most graceful and fluid to behold and proof positive of winning the Norwegian Competition of Folk Music and Dance and 5 times over. With dead-pan humor, he merrily tossed off dance tunes with titles like "The Tune the Devil Whistled as He Buried His Mother."

The modern traditionalist duo known as Sudan Dudan presented a remarkable concert of haunting medieval music that they've rearranged for contemporary ears. Marit Smedsrud Karlberg, player of the langeleik, a Norwegian zither, along with Anders Erik Røine, guitarist and fiddler, sang soothing ancient ballads that people sang long ago, yet are now gaining many younger enthusiasts.

Read Part Two Here