root salad Ragnhild Furebotten
Norwegian fiddle and brass band adventures ahoy! As Andrew Cronshawwill tell you, this is amazing music…
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ast month I unleashed a sizeable slice of Roget in purple praise of Ragnhild Furebotten’s fiddle-and- brass band Never On A Sunday and its Norwegian Grammy-equivalent winning CD. Now, some background.
Born and raised north of the Arctic Circle in the county of Salten, Ragnhild went to high school even further north, in Tromsø. She studied fiddle way down south in Telemark and then Oslo, where in 2000 she and other students formed a band, named after the neighbourhood of Majorstuen, that was an innovation in Norwegian folk music: six fiddlers and cel- lists with no other instruments, working together in evolving their own arrange- ments and compositions. Ragnhild left in 2006 after their third album, and now lives back up in Troms county, a 1200 kilometre flight north from Oslo.
Her first solo album was 2007’s
very attractive Endelig Vals, with accordeonist Frode Haltli and Majorstuen fiddler/cellist Gjer- mund Larsen. In 2008 came the CD Hekla Stålstrenga, a project with guitarist Tore Bruvoll. That became a band of the same name, comprising Ragnhild, Tore, singer Anne Nymo Trulsen, bass and drums, and they released a new album in 2011.
Also in 2007 Ragnhild,
Guinea’s Mory Kanté and Armenian Navy Band leader Arto Tuncboyaciyan were the three guest soloists with a 12-member international orchestra in a show commis- sioned by Festspillene i Nord- Norge (the Festival of North Nor- way) called Arctic Subcircle. The five brass and reeds players in the band were trombonist and trombonium player Helge Sunde, saxist Geir Lysne (both of them well-known as leaders of their own jazz orchestras), saxist Frode Nymo, trumpeter and flugelhorn player Anders Eriksson and trumpeter Marius Haltli.
“We had such a good chemistry in the Nord Norge production. They invited me to a concert by Ensemble Denada, which is Helge Sunde’s band. Hearing that I fell in love with Helge Sunde’s style, and realised I wanted to do something with just horns. When I told them about my idea I saw that they really liked it. I presented it to them the way it has become, that we’d be like a fiddle ensem- ble, like in Majorstuen, we’d learn the tunes and the bowing and phrasing so on. They’d never worked like that.”
“I agreed to do some more concerts with Mory Kanté in the north if I could test out this ensemble in the same con- cert, and we did two or three tunes during those shows.”
“So I had the guys, and I just needed a really good tuba player.” Some asking around found Lars Andreas Haug. “Every- body suggested him. I think he’s the tuba player in the Nordic countries.”
The material is a mix of Ragnhild’s compositions and of traditional tunes from her native region, some of them from the big collection of recordings and manuscripts she inherited from her great- grandfather. They’re memorable, shapely, unusual tunes, and certainly not accom-
finding my place in this huge sound, and also rhythmical things. But now that we’ve done a lot of concerts it’s easy.”
As a unit they’re pretty flexible. “I like that we’re not dependent on a huge stage and huge PA. In fact except for the fiddle we could do acoustic concerts. We’ve played in small places and big places and it’s working everywhere.”
The brass players sit in a curve, with Ragnhild at the focus. Even when playing sitting down she’s magnetically animated, swinging from side to side, foot-tapping, twinkling at the fun, blue eyes sparkling and striking red hair catching the lights. And the chaps are no static, music-stand- fixated lot; there’s a great deal of commu- nication and creativity going on.
“Yes, I hear new things at every con- cert. They have to know the tune, the arrangement, and what we’re trying to make, like how we play the beat and so on. But then I want them, and they want too, to be free, and experi- ment, and express themselves indi- vidually. And I don’t think Lars Andreas plays a lot of what’s on the sheets!”
With this group Helge plays the trombonium, which takes a trombone role in terms of pitch but has no slide and looks something like a slim baritone horn. I asked Ragn- hild about it.
modating to straightforward brass scoring, and the arrangements, by Helge and Geir, take no superficial route but get right inside them. “Geir has done some, but it’s been mostly Helge. And he is, well… I real- ly want to look inside his brain! It’s a little special universe in there, I think. He’s been driving straight through these tunes and made them a lot more… well, I love what he’s done with them.”
They demand, and draw, extraordinary agility from all the players. “I have to admit that the first concerts we did, I felt this was quite difficult. Lots of things: intonation,
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“Yeah, well, that’s a very unusual instrument! They’ve explained it to me a couple of times; they’re really brass nerds! I know that there are only four tromboniums in Norway, and Helge is the leader of the Norwegian trom- bonium union!” She collapses in gig- gles, recovering just long enough to continue, “It’s a very convenient instru- ment, because it fits into his trombone bag, and leaves room for his clothes!”
ost of the shows so far have been in Norway, with a few in Sweden and Womex in Copenhagen. But if ever a combo were hot to trot, able to play right across the spectrum of folk, world music, classical and jazz events it’s this one, and later this year they’ll be playing in Germany, with Belgium and France in early 2013.
“It’s been a lot of work to administer and finance. I wanted to get on with the creative part!” The award, after eight years of applying, of a state stipend that pays Ragnhild’s living expenses for the next year should help with that.
www.furebotten.com F 15 f
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