49 f
Førde
Røine on langeleik, jew’s-harp and guitar, and dancer Ane Evjen Gjøvåg personifying Samuline Seljeset with acute movement and stillness.
In its Talent project each year the festi- val brings together a small group of young Norwegian musicians to rehearse and col- laborate with those from another part of the world. This year brought dazzling high- speed vallenato from Colombia, and Cubans including striking singer and flautist Annie Garcés Santana.
The main indoor centres in Førde itself are Førdehuset, with multiple venues including its huge main sports hall, and the three venues, plus bars, in the Scandic Sunnfjord Hotel, which conveniently is the main accommodation for artists and lucky guests such as I. Bulgarian choir Angelite performed in the white-painted church, Tinariwen in the park by the river, and each day there were outdoor perfor- mances in the town’s shopping centre, which was also the culmination of the Sat- urday procession of artists.
This year’s big festival gala concert fea- tured an international spread of eight bands, their sets elegantly and seamlessly linked by video clips of interviews with band members by Annbjørg Lien, who pre- sented, and played too, joined by Väsen guitarist Roger Tallroth.
There were often simultaneous events
so I couldn’t get to everything, Amongst other omissions, I didn’t make it to the top of Hafstadfjellet, the 700m mountain over-
looking the town, where Cape Verde’s Bitori found themselves playing on the Saturday lunchtime. I did, though, get up the valley to ever-splendid Swedish trio Väsen’s inti- mate gig in one of the collection of old wooden buildings at Sunnfjord outdoor folk museum (thanks to Klezmatic Paul Morris- sett for the lift back when, photo-wandering, I missed the bus), and to the evening of per- formances in another collection of the tradi- tional wooden, grass-roofed architecture at Jølster museum. A standout there was Nor- way-resident Iranian santur player Javid Afsari Rad and his violin and cello trio.
O
f what I did see, so many high points, so much to admire and respect, so much musical hon- esty. A just-right set from Bruce Molsky with his Mountain
Drifters (what a brilliant frailing banjoist is Allison de Groot, and the trio’s vocals blend perfectly); Vojvodina (Serbia/Hungary) vio- linist Félix Lajkó, whose musical mind seems to work at twice the speed of normal humans, playing out his soul at Gabriel Fliflet’s Columbi Egg unplugged club-night; the Klezmatics arousing joyful crowd danc- ing, as were Sweden’s Folk All-in Band (not a great name, but FAB indeed), a mighty, surging, show-peaking dance-impelling beast of fiddles, brass and more led by Karl Johan Ankarblom.
And, and… Galicia’s Xabier Díaz & Adufeiras de Salitre (seen them a lot, never too much), Finnish/Danish/British Baltic Crossing, Argentinians La Porteña Tango Trio, the mugham of Azerbaijan’s Ragana
Qasimova, Burkina Faso balafonist Mamadou Diabaté, Denmark’s Helene Blum, France’s Titi Robin Trio, Zimbabwe’s Mokoomba, Cuba’s Asere, Brazil’s Casuarina, Norway-resident multicultural Combo - Nations led by Javid Afsari Rad and includ- ing fave singing kora griot Solo Cissokho, plus partying and unlikely jamming encoun- ters… a continuous delight of great, warm- spirited real artistry. Just look at the line-up on
www.fordefestivalen.no
My thanks to all the Førde team, and to the Norwegian Embassy in London.
F Liv Merete Kroken & Sigrid Moldestad
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