From 14-18 July this summer, the streets and theatres of Aberdeen City and Shire will resound to the music of the fiddle, with several Norwegian musicians participating.
With more than 12 countries taking part, the North Atlantic Fiddle Convention (NAFCo) brings together artists, scholars, and teachers to share music and ideas. This is the fourth NAFCo to be held, the first two were in Aberdeen and the third in St. John’s, Newfoundland. This year’s theme is ‘Roots and Routes’, through which it will explore the ways these distinctive musical traditions have evolved and developed, especially in a globalised context.
An important part of the fiddle traditions is of course Norway. Frøholm & Tillung is a very successful folk music groups and is a collaboration between Hardanger fiddle player Britt Pernille Frøholm and accordionist Irene Tillung. Their debut album ‘Eins’ was released in 2009. Frøholm has a wide knowledge of Norwegian folk music traditions which she explores through contemporary music, improvisation with jazz musicians and by performing music from her own hometown of Hornindal, taught to her by her grandfather. Irene Tillung has spent the last three years touring for Rikskonsertene, mostly in Norway, but also in Vietnam, India and Sudan. Irene is one of the most renowned accordion players in the country and plays in the group Tindra, which was nominated for the Norwegian Grammy in 2007.
In Aberdeen Frøholm and Tillung will also perform with Lori and Innes Watson as the Scottish-Norwegian band Boreas, which brings together Scots song and fiddle traditions with dance music and song melodies from the West of Norway. With their contemporary arrangements and textures, Boreas is making waves across the North Sea and beyond.
Other Norwegian musicians at the Fiddle Convention are students from the Ole Bull Academy in Voss, including Ingebjør Sørbøe, a Hardanger fiddler with a solid background in traditional music, and Laura Ellestad, a young Hardanger fiddler from Canada with ancestral roots in Norway. After receiving the Hardanger Fiddle Association of America’s Ole Bull Scholarship in 2005, Ellestad spent two years studying the instrument in Norway.
The North Atlantic Fiddle Convention is about looking outwards, sharing and celebrating the qualities of these musical traditions. Beside the concerts and lectures, there are over 100 workshops, and more than 20 of these feature dance traditions associated with fiddle music.
For visitor information visit www.abdn.ac.uk/nafco