Music Bridge between Norway and Russia

The audience from Kirkenes, Vardø, Vadsø, Karasjok, Alta (Norway) and Arkhangelsk and Naryan-Mar (Russia) listened to new composition performed by the violin ensemble, piano and soloists created by Nils Henrik Asheim, a well-known Norwegian contemporary composer.

Folk songs of the three northernmost Barents costal territories: the Nenets Autonomous Area, Arkhangelsk / Pinega and Vardø (Norway) formed the composition basis. The project idea was born in 2009, when Niels Henrik Asheim visited the Nenets song festival "Sava syo" in Naryan-Mar. He selected folk tunes, as well as the Nenets soloist Paraskovya Vyucheyskaya from the Neney Syo group in Krasnoe settlement. In 2011, the composer joined together the musical materials in the Suzyomje Pomor cultural theater in Arkhangelsk and in Vardø.

Three songs became the starting point for the Asheim’s composition. All songs are related to travelling. They are a song of a Pomor fisherman who every year makes his way by land and by sea to the Eastern coast of Norway; a song of a Nenets man, who all his life nomads from one season to another; a favorite song of Norwegians moved to the Ribachiy Peninsula in the 19th century and their descendants who met with stern tests in Stalin's time.

“Travelling Songs” composition was conceived as a bridge between the classical and folk music, as well as between the Russian and the Norwegian part of the Barents Region. In addition to folklore, the Norwegian and Russian classical compositions, related to the travelling theme, were included into the concert program.

Paraskovya Viucheiskaya, Nenets soloistThe Norwegian and the Russian audience equally well reacted to the musical project and noted its singularity, profoundness, harmonious combination of folk and classical music. "We had agreed at once when we were invited to become a partner of the project. It is very important for us that Nils Henrik used Pomeranian and Nenets folklores and gave a new life to them. His composition makes me and many of my countrymen remember our own childhood and forgotten melodies performed by our mothers. I saw tears in the eyes of many of my countrymen when they were listening Paraskovya Vyucheyskaya’s voice. But these were simultaneously tears of sadness and joy. Sadness, because many of Nenets had been separated from their home and families in the Soviet period and found themselves in boarding schools. Joy, because we could again listen to the native voice of the tundra, but in a new way "- said Valentina Zganich, Director of Ethnic cultural center of the Nenets Autonomous Okrug.

Among performers of the project were the Norwegian violin ensemble "NOOR" (Finnmark, Norway), Pomor ensemble (Arkhangelsk, Murmansk), soloists: Paraskovya Vyucheyskaya, member of folk group "Neney Syo" (Krasnoe settlement), three singers from the Suzyomje folklore theatre "(Arkhangelsk, Pinega) and Anne-Lise Berntsen, project leader and singer from Vardø.

The project was implemented with the help of the Art Council Norway and the BarentsKult program. The project partners became the Ethnic cultural center and the Cultural Business Centre “Arctica”” in the Nenets Autonomous Area and the Pomor State Philharmonic Society in Arkhangelsk.