Ragnhild Furebotten

7 – 15 October 2009
Ragnhild Furebotten, fiddle
Tore Bruvoll, guitar
Trond-Viggo Solås, double bass
Christian Svensson, drums

‘There’s just a little ocean between us. I think there’s more that connects us than not,’ suggests Tore Bruvoll, guitarist, composer, arranger, and one half of the duo behind the group Hekla Stålstrenga (which means ‘crochet-work steel-strings’). Bruvoll is referring to the relationship between Norwegian and Irish traditional music, and listening to the myriad of musical projects that Bruvoll and Ragnhild Furebotten – fiddle-player and co-founder of the group – engage in, it is relatively easy to hear, not just similarities in styles, but that same musical searching that has invigorated so much of Irish traditional music in recent years.

Norway, like Ireland, experienced an influx of styles, instruments and new approaches to traditional music in the 1990s. That was what drew blues guitarist Bruvoll in. Furebotten on the other hand grew up with traditional music, her great-grandfather in particular being a collector of music. Both come from the northern part of Norway, in the counties of Nordland and Troms. Trace the area on a map – it is that thin middle section of Norway where Sweden comes within a few kilometres of the Norwegian Sea, or Norskehavet – and it is little wonder that the musical tradition is so deeply entwined with the maritime tradition. As Furebotten explains, ‘Most of this part of Norway is along the coastline, and therefore the music is inspired by this type of society: the weather, the ocean, boats and fishing, journeys, visitors, death, tragedies, wives alone at home waiting for husbands, and hard work.’ The geography shapes the people too, she continues, ‘The personality of the people from the north is often characterised as open, direct, and with lots of humour – maybe even a bit of raw humour!’ Yet it also the great distances between Nordland and Troms and the major urban centres of Norway that are important: ‘This is a very long area, the distances are huge, and this affects the musical tradition. The regional styles are very much present.’

What may also resonate with Irish audiences about this particular northern region is that, like in our own northern Donegal tradition, the fiddle music is played at a quicker pace than the rest of Norway. They also, surprisingly, do not have a tradition of playing the hardingfele, or hardanger fiddle. This ornately designed, unique-sounding instrument, which is synonymous with Norway, and which has been championed in Ireland in recent years by fiddle players Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh and Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh of Altan, is more established in the traditions of south Norway.

Ragnhild Furebotten is an example of a young artist openly exploring what it means to be a traditional musician in the twenty-first century. Her output is substantial already, her music vies between the experimental and the traditional, and her perspective embraces the bigger picture: ‘North-Norwegian cultural heritage and traditional Norwegian music in general are big parts of my identity. But still, I don’t think of myself first and foremost as a folk musician. Rather I feel that I’m a musician, period, and that being a musician is about the balance and strife between background and traditions and ever-new inspirations.’ Striking that balance can be a constant search. After several years living in Oslo, touring at home and abroad, and also studying in Denmark, she decided to move back to northern Norway: ‘Yes, moving back up north after years in Oslo was a decision to embrace and live fully the specific culture that was mine form the start. I wanted to … play a role in the cultural life of the north. … I think that having ties to tradition and proper knowledge of cultural history are things that make a more genuine personal expression possible. For me at least, the notion of being a representative of a tradition makes my quest for a personal expression more focused and fruitful.’

Citing Norwegian fiddle-players Susanne Lundeng and Harald Haugaard as important influences, but also bluegrass singer/fiddle-player Alison Krauss and singer/songwriter Kate Rusby, Furebotten was originally best known as a member of Majorstuen, a dynamic young fiddle group who in 2003 won a Spellemannprisen, the Norwegian equivalent of a Grammy. The natural next step for her was a solo album, Finally Waltz, which has received particular acclaim, and which takes a more distilled approach, involving just two other musicians – Gjermund Larsen on fiddle and Frode Haltli on accordion. Despite the sparse approach, the recording called for an exploratory creative process that involved much improvisation and experimentation between the musicians. The result demonstrates not just a terrific technique – crisp execution is an umistakeable feature of her fiddle-playing – but also artistic focus: each track is finely constructed, ‘Aslag-slatten’ in particular combining a clever weave of counter melodies and syncopated rhythms on clarinet and fiddle, with a repeated trill holding it all together. She is currently working on her second solo album.

Furebotten has been to Ireland a few times before and is very aware of the Irish fiddle tradition, in particular musicians such as Tommy Peoples, Martin Hayes, Paddy Glackin and John Carty, but there is an even more direct connection between Ireland and Hekla Stålstrenga, for Tore Bruvoll is the guitarist with the group String Sisters. A group established at the Celtic Connections festival in Glasgow in 2001, it combines the fiddle traditions of Ireland (Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh), Norway (Annbjørg Lien), the Shetland Islands (Catriona Macdonald), USA (Liz Carroll and Liz Knowles) and Sweden (Emma Härdelin), with Bruvoll on guitar. To hear String Sisters is to appreciate just how reconcilable these traditions are. The experience has heightened Bruvoll’s awareness of the interconnections between the traditional musics of Europe. ‘Tunes from all over have so much in common,’ he explains, ‘I’ve experienced this when playing with the String Sisters. Folk music is definitely a universal language.’

Multi-instrumentalist Bruvoll, who lists traditional singer Sondre Bratland, trumpeter Arve Henriksen, Eric Clapton and Tom Waits as particular influences, started out as a blues guitar player in the niteclubs of Tromsø. You can still hear that influence in his playing, although traditional Norwegian folk music has been his principle focus for the last ten years. He has recorded two albums with traditional singer Jon Anders Halvorsen, and yet a visit to his MySpace page reveals an artist who stretches over the full gamut of contemporary Norwegian musical life. In particular, ‘Kvea’, in which Bruvoll records an extremely sensitive accompaniment on saz, a Middle Eastern instrument, over a track of an elderly Norwegian traditional singer, demonstrates real capability and understanding. It is not surprising that aside from his work with Furebotten and the String Sisters, Bruvoll is one of the most popular guitarists on the Norwegian folk scene. He is at the moment not only working with various other bands, but also writing music for a play and developing a new band using two guitars.

Ragnhild Furebotten and Tore Bruvoll met at the age of sixteen in the mid-1990s in a music college in Tromsø in Troms county. Despite the instant musical match, it wasn’t until 2005 that they finally realised their ambition of establishing a group together and then last year releasing the group’s first CD, simply titled Hekla Stålstrenga. They suggest that the tunes in their repertoire that are perhaps furthest away from the Irish tradition, such as their ‘pols-tunes’, will be of particular interest to Irish audiences, but ‘Hjertebank’ and ‘Ekvilibristen’, two tunes written by Furebotten, should also be mentioned. Both are contemporary fiddle tunes that nonetheless demonstrate the uniqueness of the tradition in Norway, in particular the marked intonation and the centrality of the trill.

For this Music Network tour, Furebotten and Bruvoll will be joined by another Spellemannprisen winner, bassist Trond-Viggo Solås, and drummer Christian Svensson, who performs with the Swedish group Hedningarna which combines electronic and folk elements with Scandinavian traditional music.

Hekla Stålstrenga may have taken several years to come together, but as with the geography of northern Norway, great distances seem to enhance the richness of the music.
- Toner Quinn,

Not yet thirty years old, Ragnhild Furebotten is already a driving force in the sphere of Norwegian traditional music. As a member of the acclaimed fiddle ensemble Majorstuen she has won a Norwegian Grammy award, popular acclaim and international experience. But also individually she has made a mark in recent years; as composer and an innovative interpreter of traditional music. Not least her solo project, Ragnhild Furebotten Trio, has drawn a lot of attention lately, and their performance at this year’s edition of the Førde Folk Music Festival is definitely one of the highlights.

After last year’s release of the trio’s debut record “Finally Waltz” -which reaped brilliant reviews across the line and was nominated for a Norwegian Grammy in the folk category- they have become associated with folk music at its most vibrant: emotionally arresting, dynamic, energetic and always a special experience live.
We had a talk with Ragnhild Furebotten in advance of the concert in Førde. The trio bears her name, for it is Furebotten who brought the three together and it’s her songs that make up their repertoire. In addition to Furebotten on fiddle, the trio consists of Frode Haltli on accordion and Gjermund Larsen on fiddle and Cello.

-We all knew each other well from before. I had played with Frode on many occasions and Gjermund is of course a close musical colleague of mine since we play together in Majorstuen. But the two of them had never actually played together before. I’m glad to say that they match each other perfectly and I think that the chemistry between the three of us is really exceptional.

So when you established this band, did you have a clear notion of what you were after, in terms of sound, instruments, repertoire and dynamic?

-The most important thing for me was to find the right people –personalities were more important than instruments- because what I wanted was for us to create a context that was really free and inspiring and mutually rewarding for all of us. I started out with a selection of songs that I wanted to explore further and give an expression; some were my own and some were folk tunes I had picked up here and there. I wanted to try out the trio format, and I wanted it to be an open and free kind of constellation that was more about listening and responding to each other than realizing fixed musical ideas.

Does that mean that improvisation and jamming is a chief character in the musical process when you play together?

-Yes and no. First of all many of the tunes we play -and the arrangements- have appeared underway. You know; tunes and ideas introduced at sound-checks and things that have developed little by little between us. And sometimes music happens in a more sudden manner too, that’s part of the fun of playing in a trio like this. -Because it is an open and pretty playful concept, and because it’s based on our musical understanding of each other and the fact that we simply lock in terms of personalities. Of course we have a plan and a structure in place before concerts, but many unexpected things happen every time.
Furebotten lavishes praise on her fellow musicians and stresses that it is because of their intuitive take on music- and the fact that they are what she calls “very liberal” musicians- that she is comfortable with the concept of the trio being her solo project.

So how would you describe the actual song-writing part of this project? What is the balance and dynamic between traditional tunes and tunes that you compose?

-Well, I don’t really focus so much on whether I came up with an idea myself or whether it is something I’ve picked up along the way. Coming from a background in traditional music these are things that always sort of interweave anyway. My incentive for this project was that I had ten songs that were mine, meaning that I’d come to regard them as a part of me, even if they weren’t all my compositions. Some of them were made by me, some are traditional tunes from Northern Norway and some are tunes I picked up while studying in Denmark.

And the first thing you did as a trio was to record those ten tunes, which became the debut Finally Waltz?

-Pretty much yes. We started out rehearsing the tunes and exploring musical ideas around them. Then we all went up to northern Norway and brought with us everything needed for proper recording sessions. It was like an expedition. First we played a few acoustic gigs to try out our ideas live. Those concerts were recorded professionally with the idea in mind that we might capture some live magic. And we did, two of the songs on the record are live takes from those concerts. The rest of it we recorded in an old church on the island of Senja. It was really a great experience because we found that special atmosphere that I had wanted; for us and for the record.

Finally Waltz has been called wide-scoping and spirited; with tunes ranging from tender beauty to fiery bursts of musical energy. As for Furebotten herself, critics often emphasise her ability to present a modern and exciting take on traditional music and a vital expression of her own north- Norwegian cultural heritage.

-As a musician one is always searching for a personal expression. Since all kinds of influences go into the moulding of this identity it is something that is constantly in progress at the same time as it naturally falls more into place over time. North-Norwegian cultural heritage and traditional Norwegian music in general are big parts of my identity. But still, I don’t think of myself first and foremost as a folk musician. Rather I feel that I’m a musician period, and that being a musician is always about the balance and strife between background and traditions and ever-new inspirations.

But all the same, you have been very conscious about linking your identity as a musician and artist to northern Norway?

-Yes, moving back up north after years in Oslo was a decision to embrace and live fully the specific culture that was mine form the start. I wanted to find my place and to play a role in the cultural life of the north. As a musician, I think that ties to tradition and proper knowledge of cultural history are things that make a more genuine personal expression possible. For me at least, the notion of being a representative of a tradition makes my quest for a personal expression more focused and fruitful.

Do you feel that the trio is a vehicle for this personal identity? More so than other projects you are involved in?

-Well, it is true that the trio is special in this respect because it is based so much on our personal chemistry. Since it is a constellation that I set up, and which I think works incredibly well, it is of course a context where I feel that my musical self naturally thrives and comes to the foreground. The fact that it is based on persons rather than line-up, and that it is an open kind of musical framework, makes it very different from what we’re doing in Majorstuen where we use only fiddles, violas and cello and never depart from the basic tenets of traditional fiddle music. We’ve played many tunes of mine in Majorstuen, but because it is a pretty dogmatic project, it can never be as personal and free as what I’m doing with the trio. The trio is a vehicle for the search for a personal expression, while Majorstuen is more focused on reinvigorating traditional expressions and refining instrumental techniques.

You’ve been on leave from Majorstuen while working with the solo project. Does this entail a more permanent shift of focus? How will you be prioritizing in the near future?

-The trio is something new and exciting for me that we’ve only just started to explore really. And I feel that the record is still “young;” the material is far from fully realized in terms of live shows. I’m looking forward to developing it further through the summer and fall, and I know that many interesting things will happen in the course of that process.

So you are not consciously working towards a new record yet?

-No, but like I said, things will certainly happen underway and new ideas will develop. Perhaps notions of a new record will take shape, that’s not unlikely. With a loose kind of concept and intuitive, open-minded musicians, things tend to happen in their own way, not according to some fixed plan.

Ragnhild Furebotten is also involved in a number of other ensembles and projects. She is active with several festivals and institutions dedicated to north-Norwegian music and culture, and in addition to her trio’s activities, the summer will see the realisation of another project dear to her heart.

-In July I go into the studio with guitarist Tore Bruvoll to make a record under the name Bruvoll / Furebotten. I’m pretty excited about it because we’ve played together since we were fifteen. So it’s a kind of coming of age of a long-running collaboration and friendship. It includes more musicians, and also vocals, but it will be released in our names. The record, entitled “Hekla Stålstrenga” (which means crochet-work steel strings), will be out some time in the fall.

Ragnhild Furebotten Trio can be captured live twice during the Førde Folk Music Festival; on Friday afternoon and again on Saturday night, at the festival’s folk music gala. - Music information senter Norway, Christian Lysvåg

Ragnhild Furebotten has been a key player in Norwegian traditional music for some years. She's no stranger to success either: from playing fiddle with the internationally acclaimed band Majorstuen, to her own solo and collaborative projects and recordings, much admired for her fine playing and for her charismatic communication
with audiences.

When I first met Raghnhild, however, a few years ago, it was clear that here was a musician who had real drive and musical ambition. Deeply devoted to her music she was as passionate about composition as performing and was developing a vision to be reckoned with.


Her latest project does credit to this ambition: at its centre is her exquisite violin playing, warm elegant tones, alongside her characteristic fire and passion. There are many ensembles in which great players collaborate but sometimes the heart is missing. This is certainly not the case here. Each individual player contributes as an outstanding individual yet bathed in Ragnhild's own character, and the strong teamwork and communication is easy to hear. The music is a vision of Norwegian tradition which is warm and intensely moving. It's perfect for our 21st century ears yet never loses the heart and spirit of an age gone by. For Norwegian audiences this is a credit to their heritage, for audiences abroad it's an exquisite invitation to enter a beautiful and emotional musical world in the company of the best of performers. One of the finest ensembles to emerge out of Norwegian tradition for a long time amidst an already impressive roster of artists.

- WRITTEN BY FIONA TALKINGTON BBC RADIO 3 – LATE JUNCTION; WRITER – SONGLINES MAGAZINE

Highlights of last September’s Folkelarm traditional music promo event in Oslo were a couple of sets, one in a theatre, the other as we ate in a white wooden antique shop cum café, by Ragnhild Furebotten’s trio. Norway’s roots music scene is hardly short of excellent fiddlers, but this group has a special bright-eyed, infectious energy. It’s an ideally balanced unit, blending Furebotten’s great command of tone, light dancing lift and communicative delight in playing the fiddle with the extreme articulacy and subtlety of Gjermund Larsen’s cello, viola and fiddle and Frode Haltli’s never brash accordion. Her debut album, Endelig Vals, features the same line-up, and captures the same spirit and richness of sound and material. It’s named after a memorable and shapely waltz, one of four of her own compositions in a set full of strong melodies ranging in pace from the deep darkness of a Saltdal folksong tune, through reinlender, pols, light-touched Danish minuet, steaming polka, a reel closely related to Britain’s Harvest Home, a classic arrangement of the stately Brurmarsj From Sørfold, to a restless, twitching Furebotten polka that is by turns mischievously suppressed and exuberant, and to finish there’s an unlisted, cheerily uncool singalong recorded at a gig.??

- fRoots Issue 298, 2008, by Andrew Cronshaw