Norway's National Folk Music & Dance Competition begins next week in Geilo and Ål, Hallingdal — and some of the Multe Music crew will be there.
This year the competition is called "NM i folkemusikk" (Norway's Master Cup in Folk Music) and is larger festival because they have combined two festivals this year that previously have been separate, Landskappleiken and Landsfestivalen.
Landskappleiken has traditionally been a competition that includes music and dance and is generally geared to the older folk music / dance traditions involving Hardanger fiddle and regular fiddle (both solo and in groups/lags), while Landsfestival has traditionally been simply a music competition geared more towards gammeldans — what we know as "old-time" music — with bands or small groups.
I've been to both festivals on multiple occasions and I think that this year will be very exciting because of the mix. In fact, I hope that the organizers will consider putting these two festivals together in the future. They certainly compliment each other. Many people involved in Landskappleik are also involved and/or interested in Landsfestival and vice versa.
To celebrate, I'm featuring this video, taken at Landsfestivalen 2005, of a group from Trondheim called Rim. They are playing Pols etter Ola Rønninga at the Master Concert of winners that ends the festival. The group took third place in Gruppespel (Group Playing). Very nice. They're not competing this year. Too bad.
Our Multe Music crew is currently on their way to Norway and they will be reporting on what they are experiencing both here on the blog and on our Multe Music Twitterstream.
