A new collaboration between two hugely acclaimed artists sees viol player Garth Knox and hardanger innovator Caoimhin O’Raghallaigh together for the first time to explore medieval music and their own soundscapes. Norway’s Nils Økland has released a series of sublime albums on ECM. A master hardanger player he is one of the leading lights of Scandinavian music.
Knox’s ECM album, Saltarello, was a sensous survey of 1,000 years of music and reached number one in the Billboard classical charts. Best known as a member of The Gloaming, O’Raghallaigh is one of trad musics most adventurous musicians equally bewitching playing the old music and exploring the region where traditional music begins to disintegrate.
Expanding the range of the traditional music of his homeland, Nils Økland is a renewer of folk music, consistently building bridges to classical, contemporary and improvised music. His playing combines freedom with respect for Norway’s musical heritage and he is concerned both with the preservation of the oral folk music tradition and with the experimental possibilities of the music when it is charged with modern impulses. He has released a series of acclaimed albums on ECM and Rune Gramafon.
Are you interested in Norwegian folk music? New CD from Norwegian folk artists is now available. Read more here: http://www.norway.ie/News_and_events/Events/Contemporary-Folk-Music/#.Vfk92E2FOUk