Sámi Comp project premieres in the Hetta Music Days

Anna Näkkäläjärvi-Länsman has been involved in the new Sámi Comp project for some time now and the results of this collaboration will soon be heard in the programme of the Hetta Music Days, the initiating force behind the project. In Sámi Comp, Sámi musicians and Western classical music composers collaborate and compose works that combine many cultural backgrounds through the method of co-composition. Näkkäläjärvi-Länsman had the opportunity to work with composers Krister Hansén from Sweden and Jaime Belmonte from Helsinki, originally Spain, on Sámi Comp. The new works in the project were composed for Anna Näkkäläjärvi-Länsman and for the modern music chamber ensemble Norbotten NEO from Piteå, Sweden. Another Sámi musician involved in the Sámi Comp project is the wonderful Hildá Länsman.

Together with Jaime Belmonte, Anna Näkkäläjärvi-Länsman has created a composition in which yoik themes and fragments of modern ensemble form a weave that becomes a musical painting. Ráidu means a reindeer stripe, and along with the stripe, the composition incorporates past events and past and present beliefs and experiences. The work consists of four movements and will premiere this Good Friday at Enontekiö Church.

The piece, composed with Krister Hansén, 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.”, Anna Näkkäläjärvi-Länsman explains. Beahci will be heard for the first time on Maundy Thursday at the Enontekiö Church.

In addition to these two premieres, Anna Näkkäläjärvi-Länsman will be attending the Hetta Music Days Travel Concert on Easter Saturday at Juhl's Silver Gallery in Kautokeino. The Easter week 2023 will be an exciting one with all the new encounters and new music.

More information: https://www.hetanmusiikkipaivat.fi/en/