Raucous, Soulful Northern Realms

Maybe I was a fiddler in a former life. With ancestors in Norway, Scotland, and Ireland, it's entirely possible. (Though I'm not sure about former lives: are we constrained to particular genetic pathways or specific geographical regions?) But how else to explain the hold that 'contemporary-traditional' music from Northern European countries has on me?

The Lotus Festival opened last night with its Northern Realms concert, featuring the groups below. At the end of the night they all shared the stage to play 3 tunes – a case of that immediate, intense 'file sharing' musicians have maintained for centuries, whenever two or three are gathered together. Here were over a dozen...and it was raucous, soulful, witty and transcendent.

I've pulled the info below from the Lotus Fest website. If you click on the video links, you too can be transported.

WALTZ WITH ME

Waltz with Me is the brainchild of Norwegian Hardanger fiddle virtuoso Annbjørg Lien, whose cohorts are fiddler Mats Edén, cellist Christine Hanson, and old-time fiddle master Bruce Molsky, The music of Waltz with Me crosses cultural and genre boundaries, moving from bluegrass, to Celtic, to Swedish fiddle music with ease and grace. Sponsored by Women of Lotus and IU West European Studies Center, Friends of Old Time & Celtic Music.
Artist website

JULIE FOWLIS

Julie Fowlis’s precise, lilting voice and mastery of Gaelic folk songs have earned her a list of awards as long as your arm, including BBC Radio 2’s Folk Singer of the Year for 2008. A native of North Uist, Scotland—where the majority of residents speak Gaelic as their first language–she sings in Scottish Gaelic, making ancient songs of the Hebridean Islands accessible to audiences around the world. She plays whistles, pipes, and other instruments, too. Her live performances move from tragic ballads, to light airs, to lilting, nonsensical “mouth music,” offering audience a rare listen to beautiful music from a rugged, ancient way of life. Sponsored by Women of Lotus and IU West European Studies Center, Friends of Old Time & Celtic Music.
Artist website | Video

FRIGG

The seven young musicians of Frigg play exquisite, lyrical string music rooted in Finnish and Norwegian traditions, with a hint of North American and Irish folk twang. The group contains three young Järveläs, two sons and a daughter of the most famous fiddle family in Finland, whose fathers and uncles founded the Finnish fiddle ensemble JPP. Frigg’s traditional sounds are supercharged with innovative arrangements, and combined with mandola, cittern, double bass, guitar and dobro. These Lotus fan favorites appear for one night only at this year’s Lotus Festival (Thursday). Sponsored by Women of Lotus, IU West European Studies, and IU Inner Asian and Uralic National Resource Center.
Artist website | Video

Lotus is Coming!

Each year the mid-sized midwestern city where I live is enriched for a few magical days, thanks to the Lotus World Music and Arts Festival. Musicians come from all over the world to perform in tents, churches, and the Buskirk-Chumley Theater, a renovated movie house. Our local food co-op, Bloomingfoods, sells food and drink, and the streets pulse with energy and rhythms from around the globe.

The Lotus Festival is only possible because of hundreds of volunteers. A small dedicated staff coordinates everything, working tirelessly to acquire passports for artists, raise funds, secure venues, publicize the event, and make it all remarkable. When the festival is over, they even remember to send out thank you cards.

Here's a little something I made to sit on my desk, to help me recall how lucky I am to have this event in my life. It's part of my effort to transform objects (and therefore the world) via images and Mod-Podge. (A modest aspiration, but someone has to do it.)

First I found a wonderful glass heart at Goodwill for $1.99. (I'm collecting those now, for future projects: the heart is a special genre of glassware, it appears.)

I glued to the bottom (face up) the note of thanks I once received from Lotus Fest assistant director LuAnne Holladay, a writer who also makes beautiful notecards and folding books.

I finished the bottom with a piece of wool felt, in the same blue as the lotus on the card. Voila. If I could say that in sixty languages, I would!

On Thursday night, while much of the world watches Sarah Palin and Joe Biden fight it out in the VP debate, I'll be at a Lotus concert, hearing music by Finnish and Norwegian fiddlers in Frigg.

Named for the Norse goddess who is the patron of marriage, motherhood, love and fertility, Frigg will thrill us with the message that the cosmos – in spite of everything – is big and generous, feisty, fertile and good.

They have a new CD called Economy Class: perfect for today's climate. Buy it!