Guest blog by Charlotte Hathaway

This April I had the pleasure of selecting and accompanying a group of 5 young traditional musicians to perform at UKM Arctic’s Art Impuls festival in Northern Norway. This is the second year of the visit and it is a partnership which I hope continues to develop.

This April I had the pleasure of selecting and accompanying a group of 5 young traditional musicians to perform at UKM Arctic’s Art Impuls festival in Northern Norway. This is the second year of the visit and it is a partnership which I hope continues to develop.

UKM is a national Norwegian organisation running regional talent competitions which culminate in a national final in Trondheim. Participants from all artforms and genres within them compete to gain a place performing in Trondheim. These performers range from bands, to dancers, to actors, to (this year) a national yo-yo champion. There are also art competitions. UKM Arctic brings together young people from all over Northern Norway who arrive in Finnsnes for a packed weekend of epic concerts and activities about the town. They also invite international guests, including performers from Russia, Finland, Sweden and now Scotland.

The atmosphere at the festival (which completely takes over the small Arctic port) buzzes with excited teenagers. Aside from the international element, I think one of the things which makes the festival such an energetic and inspiring event is the amount of young people involved in it. Everyone can find a way to take part somehow. The audience is packed out with friends and family; the performers (as young as 10) have slots at one of the four shows (and selected guests perform in cafes around the town); and the whole organising team on the ground is made up of young people supervised by a core of professionals. They take on roles such as front of house, stage crew, show producers (a group of older young people aged around 19-23), press team, film crew, art exhibition team, and show presenters. Some young people also get the opportunity to have paid festival positions in the organisation (show producers falling under this category). Young people have a lot of responsibility and there’s a feeling of organised chaos about it. However, they leave lots of time for things like soundchecks so there’s always leeway. You have to be patient, but it’s worth it for the amount of young people who get to be involved.

I get the feeling the international element is unique to UKM Arctic’s festival and is mostly due to director Odd-Halvdan Jakobsen’s artistic vision. There’s been an international presence for a few years now, and last year Scotland took part in collaboration workshops with folk musicians and dancers from other Arctic countries. This year we had a shorter visit but the festival certainly made the most of our presence. As well as opening two of the main concerts, we found ourselves performing in the café, for a politicians’ lunch, a conference and opening the art exhibition. I think, like most rural places, this area can feel quite isolated and young people perhaps don’t have the multicultural influences of big cities, so this element really enriches the festival. The younger performers found it inspiring to meet experienced young musicians from abroad, and people had a lot of questions to ask about Scottish traditional music.

The idea that our guys were celebrating their own traditional culture felt quite important (in this multi-genre event). For most of the festival participants and guests their own traditional music was far outside of their own field of experience and they were keen to know how many people play the music, what its origins are and if it’s big among young people at home. The fact that Team Scotland presented themselves so professionally (and were so talented and flexible) helped to really emphasise that traditional music is a strong part of the culture in Scotland. It went down well among the people in Finnsnes.

The festival has been a brilliant platform to showcase some of our young traditional musicians abroad, and those who have taken part have gone on to stay in touch with people they’ve met and collaborate further. Last summer we teamed up with Aberdeen International Youth Festival to bring performers from Finland and Norway to spend 10 days performing and collaborating with Scottish musicians at the festival. Again, this kind of cultural exchange is hugely beneficial to all those involved and I hope we can build the relationships between these festivals for future projects. Myself, I’ve had many many enquiries from people hoping to go to Norway next year, so we’ll just have to see.

Charlotte is Communications Assistant for the TMF and freelance producer working with members Unroofed Records, Edinburgh Youth Gaitherin and Aberdeen International Youth Festival.