Folk Music Event at Nalen

When Nalen just had re-opened after the renovation, Sami arranged a folk music event ("spelmansstämma" ). At that time, Benny Andersson and Orsa Spelmän took part. That dance has stayed in our memory, and for this reason we awaited this new event full of expectation.

This Saturday in October was rainy. For that reason we decided to join when the concerts that began at 03.30 pm. There was an impressing number of well known folk musicians that participated this evening and played excellent folk music.

Anders Larsson opened with song melodies with rhythm and feeling, varied with some talking. He later also conducted a song workshop ("visstuga"). Thuva Härdelin continued in the same style, playing violin beautifully and telling stories.

Hans Röjås was the next man on the scene, playing bodapolska and other music.

The sound from Stockholms spelmanslag was quite good. The bass tones from the Citra could be distinguished much better during this concert, which in my opinion gave a better sound to the team as a whole.

Pers Hans played powerfully and beautifully. At this time we got a feeling of unconsciousness from all the music, and also a need to stretch our legs. Luckily there was at that time a little pause.

Lisa Rydberg began her session with declaring that the whole building was swaying. She came directly from a sailing ship, something that did not stop her from giving a performance of top class. She played with emphasis and at the same time with technical brilliance, e.g. polska from Östbjörka and some Bach inspired music in the boundary between classical music and folk music. She got a storm of applause after her concert.

Cajsa and Annika Ekstav finished this part of the concert by playing and singing music from their repertoire from the northern Uppland.

At that time it was very pleasant to improve the blood circulation by some dancing. There was some dance with Stockholms spelmanslag playing, before the last concert event for the night; Orsa spelmän. This evening they were not accompanied by Benny, and my feeling was that that lead to that their music was more traditional, as I remembered them from previous decades. It was crowded and high temperature in the hall during this part of the concert.

The remaining part of the evening we were dancing. In the big hall Trollrike Spelmän, Orsa Spelmän and Stockholms Spelmanslag played. We danced in Harlem only for a short period at the end of the evening, but earlier it had been dance to Pers Hans, Thuva, Lisa and Sonja there.

The evening was very pleasant, with excellent music.