Karin
Brennesvik was born in Oslo and has been dancing
since she was five. She has both performed and taught folk dancing in
Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Poland, France, the Netherlands,
Spain, Great Britain, and the United States. She has been Norwegian
Champion twice and won many competitions in couple dancing (Springars
and Gangars). Her dance groups have won prizes in international
world-wide competitions. She has choreographed programs for the 150th
birthday celebration of Edward Grieg, the Barbican Center in London,
the Royal Foreign Department of Norway, and the Norwegian Embassy in
the U.S., and has performed for the King and Queen of Norway among
others.
Tom
Løvli (link
opens in a new window) was born in
Jondalen, Norway
and
started dancing with Karin Brennesvik’s group at the age of
seven. He has won many competitions, including Norwegian Champion for
his performance of the Halling dance, known as one of the most athletic
dances in the world and requiring exceptional strength, skill, and
grace. He has performed regularly with Karin in Norway, the USA, and
Europe, including a performance for the King and Queen of Norway. He
teaches dance and is regarded as one of the best folk dancers in Norway.
Sigbjørn Rua (link
opens in a new window), born in Jondal, Norway,
comes from a long line of dancers and fiddlers and began dancing at a
very young age. His first foreign performance was at age seven with
Karin Brennesvik’s group in the Netherlands. He was
Karin’s first dance partner for the Christmas Revels in
Boston (1993) and has appeared in other Revels cities as well. He is a
class A dancer, has been a national champion in the Halling. He has
performed in Norske Rikskonserter and abroad in Africa, Europe, and the
USA. Sigbjorn teaches dance and is regarded as one of the best young
folk dancers in Norway.
Text
credit: Houston Revels
(Link above opens in a new
window.) Loretta Kelley is the foremost
American performer on the traditional Hardanger fiddle, an intricately
decorated fiddle native to Norway with sympathetic strings, a nearly
flat bridge, and a 300-year unbroken aural tradition. Loretta
specializes in
slått
music, dance tunes rooted in the 18th century with sometimes unique
asymmetrical rhythms, modal scales with "floating" intervals, and
haunting tonalities.
Loretta's performances include appearances on Prairie Home Companion,
All Things Considered, the Kennedy Center's Millennium Stage, and The
Christmas Revels. She has released four recordings. Loretta also
collaborated with two other leading lights of Scandinavian music in
America, Andrea Hoag and Charlie Pilzer, on a pair of highly acclaimed
CDs of traditional and recently-composed Scandinavian tunes. The second
of these,
Hambo in the
Snow, was nominated for a 2007 GRAMMY Award as Best
Traditional World Music Album.
Here are some samples of Loretta's music:
Photo and
text credit: www.hoagkelleypilzer.com
Leif
plays the nyckelharpa, among other things, and is based in Bjorklinge,
Sweden. He says:
With
my
fiddle, nyckelharpa, cowhorn, guitar and dancing shoes I have been
teaching and performing in Sweden, Europe and USA. My office also holds
a shop for violins and nyckelharpas and all parts. Being one of the few
experts in the nyckelharpa field I have continuous contacts over the
world and in 1995 I was instrumental in founding the ANA (American
Nyckelharpa Association).
Leif's
website (link
opens in a new window) is a wonderful resource for those
interested in this instrument and in a person making a living in the
folk music field.
Matt is based in the Boston area. He says:
Matt
Fichtenbaum encountered the nyckelharpa while teaching engineering in
Sweden, and began playing in 1977 after constructing his first harpa.
Matt has studied with some of Sweden's finest nyckelharpa players; he
has taught nyckelharpa in the U.S. at Buffalo Gap and Mendocino, and he
even led a beginning nyckelharpa course in Linköping, Sweden!
He
plays regularly for Scandinavian dancing in the Boston area, and
has written extensively about the art of playing harpa for the American
Nyckelharpa Association. Matt appeared in the first Revels
"Northlands" in 1993 in Cambridge, and was part of Revels North's
"Northlands" in 1998. When time permits, he earns his living
as
an engineer.
Jane and Sophie Orzechowski
Jane
Orzechowski and her daughter Sophie Orzechowski play traditional fiddle
tunes from Sweden and from New England in their family band, the Sugar
River String Band. Sophie, a senior in high-school, has been playing
the fiddle and piano for over ten years. She was apprenticed
to
Bob McQuillen for contra dance piano as part of the traditional arts
apprentice/master musician program with the NH Council of the Arts. She
traveled to Norway in February 2005 where she performed as a musician
for a group of teenage dancers on a cross-cultural exchange program.
Sophie began teaching private music lessons at age 11 and currently has
both piano and fiddle students. Jane also is a member of the
contra dance band Old New England, which has performed at contra
dances, festivals and First Nights around New England, at the
Millennium Stage in the Kennedy Center, for the East Lawn Concert
Series at the United States Capitol, and at the Library of Congress
Neptune Plaza Concerts. Jane was selected, with her band Old New
England and son Francis, to help represent New Hampshire at the
Smithsonian Folklife Festival held for two weeks on the Mall in
Washington, DC in 1999 and again at the Celebrate New Hampshire
Festival in Hopkinton in June 2000. Jane has recorded a number of
albums with various artists and bands. The Sugar River String Band has
performed at New Hampshire and Vermont schools, public dances, the
Eastern States Exposition, nursing homes, town celebrations, farmers'
markets and senior centers. The band has recorded with Jacqueline and
Dudley Laufman on the White Mountain Reel and The Sweets of May, books
and CD's of traditional American dances.
This
is not the first time Sattuma has visited the Upper Valley. The group
toured schools in Vermont in 2003, and returned in 2004 and
2006
to
perform in Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, and Massachusetts. They have
also appeared on the Milennium Stage of the Kennedy Center. Here, the
group demonstrates a number of traditional
instruments before students. The link above