Ánnámáret to Nordic Music Days

Ánnámáret is performing at the Nordic Music Days in Glasgow in the end of October with two of her projects. Established by the Nordic Composers Council (NKR) in 1888, Nordic Music Days is one of the world’s oldest festivals for Nordic contemporary music and sound and is unique in that it is curated by the composers themselves.

Ánnámáret with her working group will perform Bálvvosbáiki entity as part of Nordic Music Days concert programme. Bálvvosbáiki entity is a work in which indigenous Sámi yoik is combined with electronic music created by Turkka Inkilä, Karelian/Estonian bowed lyre played by Ilkka Heinonen and video art created by Marja Viitahuhta. Based on the yoiks of the Sámi artist Ánnámáret, this work explores and expresses how the Sámi relationship with nature, the ancient religion of nature, and the Sámi worldview continue to manifest themselves in Sámi life today.

Another concert with Ánnámáret will be with the Hebrides Ensemble and the piece, composed together with Krister Hansén. The piece is called Beahci (The Pine). “Krister suggested a forest as the theme for the composition and when I thought of the forest, I began to think of the huge pine trees growing in the yard of my childhood home. Those pines have seen many human stages in their many centuries of life and, by chance, those pines are a strong sense of place for me. The yoiks you hear in this piece are my tribute and tribalism to these trees. At the same time, the work explores what the end of the nomadic way of life has meant for subsequent generations.” Ánnámáret explains the background of the composition.

The 2024 Nordic Music Days is a new collaboration between Scotland and the Nordic Composers Council, with the ambition to build long-lasting, sustainable partnerships between musical organisations, communities and creative individuals and is the first time that the festival has been presented in Scotland. The theme running through the festival is Word of Mouth. It invokes something personal, informal and close: the passing on, movement and the spreading of ideas, stories, knowledge and traditions.

As well as the strength and variety of the artistic programme, the festival is an enormous coming together of the contemporary music industry in all these countries, with partnership and exchange being key to its legacy including a focus on sustainable practice and social responsibility.

Ánnámáret´s travel to Nordic Music Days is supported by Dáiddafoanda and the Finnish Composers Association..

More information: https://nordicmusicdays.org/