Hendelser i nord

Many of these songs were sold as shilling prints. These are songs about current events, and those who wrote them were important news spreaders in their time. The first printing house in Norway was established in Christiania in 1643, and one of the first things to be printed was a ballad. The melodies used were often well-known folk tunes, or melodies borrowed from the theatre and variety stage. The songs tell of murder, accidents, distress and love (often the unhappy), and when the Swedes sing about train robberies, they sing in Northern Norway about shipwrecks on the Arctic Ocean. The Kven songs have much of the same content, but also sing about the country they left when the need became too great.

Events in the North was commissioned for Kalottspel 2023, and is produced by Scene Nord's department Folk Music North.

Nikolai Äystö – vocals, clarinet, percussion
Sigrid Randers-Pehrson – vocals
Emma Härdelin – vocals, fiddle
Kjell-Erik Eriksson – fiddle
Janne Strömstedt – wooden organ