In Rauland we are home to one of the most active Folkemusikkscener (Folk Music Stages). This fall we have been more active than ever before and we have managed to have a concert almost every other week.
The school year started off with a concert by Ragnhild Furholt and Leiv Solberg. Their stage presence is highly entertaining, especially when joined by Ånon Egeland with a poly-rhythmic percussion solo played on the back of a ukulele. All three are instructors at the school and excellent musicians.
The following concert was the Fliflet/Hamre Kraftforening (Energy Association). These two play wild music on accordion and percussion with inspiration from modern and popular music to Norwegian and Hungarian folk. After the concert they explained to us some of their philosophies about playing music. Their goal is to be the host at a party with the audience as their guests; they hope to get us to laugh, relax, and have a good time while listening to them tell stories and play music.
Following Fliflet/Hamre was the moving music of Nils Økland. I wrote about his concert earlier, but I am still impressed by the music he created. It was soft and gentle and permeated the room; when it's empty, I think the walls probably play back his concert.
Moving right along, we were next treated to Kim Andre Rysstad, Lajla Renate Buer Storli, and Jon Ole Morken. They played from all three of their traditions (Setesdal, Hardanger, and Røros). They played solos, duets, and as a trio giving a varied texture to an excellent concert.
In the eyes of the traditionalists, nothing beats a concert of solo hardingfele. The house was packed two weeks ago when Valdres native Jan Beitohaugen Granli sailed in from a seminar in Oslo to share tunes and stories with us. The five time Landskappleiken winner kept us on the edge of our seats for nearly and hour. He entertained us with funny anecdotes about the music, instruments, and history and commanded our attention with his technical and musical expertise. Anyone who enjoys Valdres tunes or solo hardingfele should get a copy of his CD. To those on the fence about the potential for beauty in solo hardingfele, I also recommend giving his CD a listen.
Last night we took a tour to the land of springleik (or sprenglek). Going by the name Duo, Erlend Viken from Oppdal and Aslak Brimi from Lom are a powerful pair. The blend simple but elegant harmonies with phenomenal melodies (both well known and new) and impeccable dance pulse. Rivaling Jan Beitohaugen, their stories were personal and got us to laugh. As I listen to their CD now, I hope that everyone gets a chance to hear these two.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Kitchen activities
David is an excellent baker. Mostly he bakes bread, but sometimes we get carried away and make cakes and muffins. I have contributed (thanks to a shipment from Mom) to the baking of corn bread and corn bread muffins. Tonight I'm planning to try out chocoloate creamcheese muffins. Yum!
We have also experimented with sour dough. After a few false starts (involving a fair amount of mold) we got our culture in high gear. We made several loaves of rye sour dough bread and rye sour dough rolls before we moved on to wheat sour dough bread. That was good! It was an excellent compliment to either turkey or cream cheese with tomato slices and (home-grown) alfalfa sprouts.
I have made a large number of dinners that stretch to lunch for several days. After about a month of various combinations of canned corn, crushed tomatoes, kidney beans, onions, and ground beef, I moved on to more interesting food. We've have been eating pan-fried salmon, totally awesome orange chicken, various stir fry dishes, quiche, and last night was avgolimono soup.
Since we are both coffee connoisseurs, we made the decision at the beginning of the year (really over the summer) to grind our own beans. This takes time, but our coffee is definitely worth drinking, compared to pretty much everything else. Recently we received an order of loose-leaf tea and have been happily enjoying having options that suit all our warm beverage needs.
These culinary delights have led to a huge pile of dishes. Both of us are generally uninterested in washing them, so they stack up until we can't avoid them any longer. Our plan is to acquire a used dishwasher after the holidays to save us time and stress. I can't wait!
We have also experimented with sour dough. After a few false starts (involving a fair amount of mold) we got our culture in high gear. We made several loaves of rye sour dough bread and rye sour dough rolls before we moved on to wheat sour dough bread. That was good! It was an excellent compliment to either turkey or cream cheese with tomato slices and (home-grown) alfalfa sprouts.
I have made a large number of dinners that stretch to lunch for several days. After about a month of various combinations of canned corn, crushed tomatoes, kidney beans, onions, and ground beef, I moved on to more interesting food. We've have been eating pan-fried salmon, totally awesome orange chicken, various stir fry dishes, quiche, and last night was avgolimono soup.
Since we are both coffee connoisseurs, we made the decision at the beginning of the year (really over the summer) to grind our own beans. This takes time, but our coffee is definitely worth drinking, compared to pretty much everything else. Recently we received an order of loose-leaf tea and have been happily enjoying having options that suit all our warm beverage needs.
These culinary delights have led to a huge pile of dishes. Both of us are generally uninterested in washing them, so they stack up until we can't avoid them any longer. Our plan is to acquire a used dishwasher after the holidays to save us time and stress. I can't wait!
Monday, November 9, 2009
Work
I continue with my daily assignment at the Dentists' office. I wash the counters and floors, while David (my chauffeur) sits in the lobby and reads Science Illustrated. Occasionally I work a few hours at the Academy.
Things have started to pick up again at the hotel. I am one of two employees from last year that have stayed on in the restaurant. This makes for lots of training of new people and hoping that they stay more than one shift. This past Saturday, I working in the restaurant for three hours and then went downstairs and was the bartender for the next five hours. It was the first time I have been a bartender for a whole night and it went reasonable well. That is except for being completely exhausted on Sunday.
I'm off to the dentists' office now, future updates will include health, weather, and school!
Things have started to pick up again at the hotel. I am one of two employees from last year that have stayed on in the restaurant. This makes for lots of training of new people and hoping that they stay more than one shift. This past Saturday, I working in the restaurant for three hours and then went downstairs and was the bartender for the next five hours. It was the first time I have been a bartender for a whole night and it went reasonable well. That is except for being completely exhausted on Sunday.
I'm off to the dentists' office now, future updates will include health, weather, and school!
Sweden in the fall
For our fall vacation, we headed to Sweden. This started and ended with late night bus/train trips. On the way to Sweden, we got a ride to Åmot at 2:30am, took the bus to Oslo and the train to Uppsala. On the way back, we took the afternoon train (filled with drunk Korean businessmen) to Oslo, the night bus to Åmot, and shared a taxi home with 5 other tired students.
We spent most of our week off hanging out in Uppsala. David's brother is spending a year in Australia, so this was our last chance to see him for a while. We also got haircuts; mine is shorter, but not short and David's is definitely short. We visited the yarn store and coffee shops and an electronics store. We made a brief appearance at IKEA. We watched TV and movies. I got a new backpack (at a really good price) and David found new boots to replace the pair that disappeared from school last spring.
While in Uppsala, I got confirmation from the UW that we could take our December exam at the Scandinavian Dept. This lead to me purchasing our tickets back to Seattle for a rockin' good price on IcelandAir. We will be in Seattle from December 12th to January 10th, playing at both the third and first Friday dances while we are there! Whoohoo! I'm really looking forward to this trip home!
After a week relaxing with David's family, we packed our things and headed to the Linköping Folkmusik Festival. This year's highlights included a workshop in Polsdans fra Finnskogen and a partner to take it with (yay David!), meeting up with Irene, and lots of good concerts, notably Ralf Novak-Rosengren who is really worth checking out on YouTube.
David and I had decided to stay in a hotel after our less than pleasant experience sleeping on the floor in Geilo. The hotel was as nice as I remembered it being - nothing beats a hotel breakfast while you're at a festival. The only downside was that the room we got was only sort-of a double room. There was one single bed and a hide-a-bed. We opted for sharing the (very comfortable) single bed. It was not exactly spacious, but we could have been on a classroom floor.
We spent most of our week off hanging out in Uppsala. David's brother is spending a year in Australia, so this was our last chance to see him for a while. We also got haircuts; mine is shorter, but not short and David's is definitely short. We visited the yarn store and coffee shops and an electronics store. We made a brief appearance at IKEA. We watched TV and movies. I got a new backpack (at a really good price) and David found new boots to replace the pair that disappeared from school last spring.
While in Uppsala, I got confirmation from the UW that we could take our December exam at the Scandinavian Dept. This lead to me purchasing our tickets back to Seattle for a rockin' good price on IcelandAir. We will be in Seattle from December 12th to January 10th, playing at both the third and first Friday dances while we are there! Whoohoo! I'm really looking forward to this trip home!
After a week relaxing with David's family, we packed our things and headed to the Linköping Folkmusik Festival. This year's highlights included a workshop in Polsdans fra Finnskogen and a partner to take it with (yay David!), meeting up with Irene, and lots of good concerts, notably Ralf Novak-Rosengren who is really worth checking out on YouTube.
David and I had decided to stay in a hotel after our less than pleasant experience sleeping on the floor in Geilo. The hotel was as nice as I remembered it being - nothing beats a hotel breakfast while you're at a festival. The only downside was that the room we got was only sort-of a double room. There was one single bed and a hide-a-bed. We opted for sharing the (very comfortable) single bed. It was not exactly spacious, but we could have been on a classroom floor.
What happened to October?
Lots happened in October! Hopefully I will have time to write about it before too much of November slips away. I'm going to try to go with a thematic approach, rather than chronological, to see if that speeds up my output.
Starting with our last theme - the car. We waited with baited breath for the first three weeks of October to get a call from the guy in Rjukan saying he'd fixed the breaks and we could come pick it up. Eventually we gave in and David called him. Sadly, he reported the news to me that the guy was not going to fix the brakes. We opted out of buying it cheaply and fixing the brakes ourselves.
We continue to share a car with Sarah. This is working out much better than it did in the beginning, although it has some drawbacks. Mostly the car is too small to cram in four people plus instruments, so we will need to find another solution in February when our class goes on tour. As of the beginning of this month, Sarah does not have a valid driver's license in Norway; while she's working on that we get the car. We (that is David) also get to drive her places when she needs a ride. While not convenient, it's not nearly as inconvenient as it sounds.
Starting with our last theme - the car. We waited with baited breath for the first three weeks of October to get a call from the guy in Rjukan saying he'd fixed the breaks and we could come pick it up. Eventually we gave in and David called him. Sadly, he reported the news to me that the guy was not going to fix the brakes. We opted out of buying it cheaply and fixing the brakes ourselves.
We continue to share a car with Sarah. This is working out much better than it did in the beginning, although it has some drawbacks. Mostly the car is too small to cram in four people plus instruments, so we will need to find another solution in February when our class goes on tour. As of the beginning of this month, Sarah does not have a valid driver's license in Norway; while she's working on that we get the car. We (that is David) also get to drive her places when she needs a ride. While not convenient, it's not nearly as inconvenient as it sounds.
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