| Artists
Sondre
Bratland
is without a doubt the most famous male
folksinger in Norway. He has played a major
role in expanding the scope of vocal folk
music, thus reaching new audiences. His
interpretations of religious folk songs have
breathed new life into this compelling
material. In 1983 he was awarded a
Spellemannsprisen, the Norwegian Grammy, for
Pilgrimens
Sangbog. Since
then he has released nine solo recordings: Den
blå gleda (1983), Kjeldevatn
(1985), Inn
i draumen (1988), Mysterie
(1990), Rosa
frå Betlehem (1992), Gjest
i verda (1994), Atterklang
(1996), Kvilestein
(1999) and Draumkvedet
(2002). He
has collaborated with other artists on 15
other productions, including Dåm
with the Oslo Chamber Choir, Hank
Williams på Norsk, The
Man from God Knows Where, Perleporten
and Sølvguttene
synger julen inn. He has been nominated
for a Spellemannsprisen four times. Together
with musicians such as Nils Petter Molvær
and Nana Vasconcelos he has created music
that hovers on the border between folk and
jazz, and he has held concerts in many
Norwegian churches along with musicians Iver
Kleive, Knut Reiersrud, Annbjørg Lien, Roar
Engelberg, Steinar Ofsdal, Paolo Vinaccia
and Knut Buen. Bratland has worked together
with composers such as Kjetil Bjerkestrand,
Henrik Ødegård, Per Indrehus, Henning
Sommerro, Kjetil Hvoslef and Arne Nordheim.
He has helped many talented young musicians
through his activities as a singing teacher
and has served as a source of inspiration to
them. He has produced a number of CDs for
other artists. Sondre Bratland was engaged
as head of the Department of Folk Culture at
the Rauland campus of Telemark University
College, and was director of the School for
Vocal Studies at the Ole Bull Academy for
two years. He has received a government
grant since 1997.
Knut
Buen,
born in 1948 in Jondalen, Kongsberg, is one
of Norway’s most prominent folk musicians.
From his home base in Tuddal, Telemark, he
operates as a sort of “folk culture
entrepreneur”. He is the son of fiddler
Anders Buen and traditional vocalist (kvedar)
Margit Buen, and brother of folk musicians
Hauk Buen and Agnes Buen Garnås. Knut Buen
has made a valuable contribution as a
performer and presenter of folk music and
other folk culture. He is a fiddler, author,
composer, storyteller, publisher,
impresario, and promoter of folk culture. He
belongs to a family of folk musicians, and
won his first National Contest for
Traditional Music at the age of 16. He has
been an active painter of Norwegian rosemaling
since the late 1960s. He founded the café
and cultural centre Knutepunktet
in 1994, and also runs Buen
Kulturverkstad and Tuddal
Amfi og Tonehall in Tuddal centre. Buen
was appointed Knight First Class of the
Royal Norwegian Order of St Olav in February
1999. He was awarded a government grant in
1989, and has received a number of prizes
including the Telemark County Cultural Award
in 1996 and two Spellemannspriser (Norwegian
Grammies). Among his many recordings are Hjartekvad,
tekst og tonedikt (2005), Spellemannsprøva
(2001, recordings from 1965 to 1976), Myllargutens
draum, draumen om det store spellet
(2001, recordings from 1972 to 1997), Der
og da = There and then, 20 slåttar med Knut
Buen live 1965-98 (1999) and Attersyn
(1995). As Knut Buen said when he received
the Telemark County Cultural Award in 1996,
“I myself want to thank folk music. It has
done everything for me, and I have done
something for it.”
Sigurd
Melvær Øgaard was
born in Bergen, Norway, in 1978, and started
studying the organ with his uncle, Kristen
Øgaard, at the age of ten. In 1996 he
attended the International Summer Academy
for Organists in Haarlem, the Netherlands,
where he studied with Professor Piet Kee.
From 1997 to 2002 Øgaard was an organ
performance major at the Grieg Academy in
Bergen, studying under Tor Grønn and
Karstein Askeland. As part of his
undergraduate work, he spent a semester at
the Birmingham Conservatoire in England,
where his teachers included David Saint and
James Parsons. While in Birmingham he worked
as an organist at St Mary’s Church,
Warwick. In 2002 Øgaard moved to the USA to
serve as organist at First United Methodist
Church, Lubbock, Texas, and also pursued a
Master’s Degree at Texas Tech University.
He is currently working on a PhD in choral
conducting under Professor John Dickson. Sigurd
Øgaard has performed extensively in Norway
and abroad in performance venues including
St Bavo Church, Haarlem; St Paul’s,
Westminster and Coventry Cathedrals
(England); Oslo, Bergen and Trondheim
Cathedrals (Norway); and Central Lutheran
Church, Minneapolis (USA).
Olga
Papalexiou
is one of the most highly profiled dancers
in Norway. She studied at the Agrafiotou
Ballet Institute in Greece (1980-1984) and
the renowned National Ballet Institute in
Budapest (1984-1986), and was engaged as a
dancer at the National Theatre in
Thessalonika, Greece. She has performed in
dances choreographed by Daniel Lommel and
Maurice Bejart, including Le
Sacre du printemps, The
Drunken Boat, The
Boat of Crazy, Kyres
and Dionyssos.
Since moving to Norway in 1990, she has
worked with choreographers such as Kristina
Gjems, Lise Eger, Dans Design, Jane Hveding,
Lise Ferner, Per Roar, Jimu Makurumbandi and
Keity Bresee. Among the Norwegian
Broadcasting Corporation productions she has
appeared in are Nomes
ark, Veien
tilbake, Peer
Gynt, in which she played the role of
Anitra, and many Christmas church services
from 1995 to 2006. In 2005 she directed the
children’s opera Brundibar
at the Norwegian National Opera. She
has choreographed Festkledd
kommunikasjonssvikt (1993), Hymne
til Apollon (1994), Susanna
(1996), Svart
(1996), Kvinnen
ved brønnen (1997), Ecce
Homo (2003), Menneskesønnen
(2004) and Carmen
(2004). Olga
Papalexiou was awarded the Norwegian Ballet
Association’s dance grant in 1999.
Won
Sun Park,
born in Seoul, South Korea, is a professor
of organ at Hanil University in Jeonjoo,
South Korea, and is considered one of the
most accomplished Asian organists of her
generation. She began playing the piano at
the age of four. She studied church music at
Yonsei University in Seoul (organ with
Professors Sang-Soo Kwak and Tong-Soon Kwak).
She later studied under Professor Klemens
Schnorr at the Staatliche Hochschule für
Musik in Freiburg, and received her degree
in 1994. From 1995 to 1998 she studied organ
under Professor Kay Johannsen and cembalo at
the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik in
Karlsruhe, where she graduated with honours.
Won Sun Park has participated in many master
classes, including those given by Andrea
Marcon, Simon Preston, Marie-Claire Alain,
Olivier Latry, Daniel Roth and Kenneth
Gilbert. She has won several awards at
prestigious international competitions,
including those held in Nuremberg (1997),
Korschenbroich (1999) and Erfurt (1999).
Wenche
Myhre
has been one of Scandinavia’s leading show
artists for several decades. She is also one
of the few Norwegians who has managed to
become a top star in Europe. This
entertainer’s versatile repertoire,
encompassing songs, comedy, musicals and
programme hosting, has captivated audiences
again and again. Her playful nature and love
of her profession have enabled her to renew
herself year after year. Wenche Myhre’s
ability to create magical moments has been
praised in thousands of newspaper and
magazine articles, and she has had enormous
success with countless recordings, films and
television shows. Among the many awards she
has received are Spellemannsprisen (the
Norwegian Grammy) and the Willy Brandt Award
for German-Norwegian co-operation, and she
has been appointed Knight First Class of the
Royal Norwegian Order of St Olav. Since she
had to cancel her appearance at the concert
last year due to illness, we are especially
pleased to be able to welcome this popular
artist to Ringebu this year.
Anders
Eljas
studied piano and violin at the Royal
College of Music in Stockholm. He began his
career touring with Björn Skifs and later
accompanied ABBA on the group’s world
tours in 1977, 1979 and 1980. He has
arranged instrumental backing for many
recordings with artists such as Lill-Babs,
Lasse Berghagen, Elisabeth Söderström,
Sven-Bertil Taube, Kerstin Dellert and Jan
Malmsjö. In the 1980s he orchestrated the
music for the musical Chess,
and has conducted the London Symphony
Orchestra. In 1987 he composed music for the
film version of a book by Astrid Lindgren,
and he directed the musicals Les
Miserables and Guys
and Dolls. Anders Eljas has focused more
on conducting in recent years, and has
appeared with most of the well-established
symphony orchestras in Scandinavia.
Franc
Polman
studied
at the Sweelinck Conservatory in Amsterdam
with Bouw Lemkes. He attended master classes
with Sandor Végh and Berl Senofsky, and
classes in early music with Jaap Schröder,
Lucy van Dael, Elisabeth Wallfisch and Fabio
Biondi. He toured Europe and the far east
with the European Community Chamber
Orchestra, appearing as soloist with them in
Hong Kong, Taiwan and Italy. He was a member
of Amsterdam Sinfonietta for thirteen years.
He has served as concertmaster of the Covent
Garden Festival Orchestra in London,
Combattimento Consort Amsterdam and Musica
ad Rhenum, and he is principal second
violinist at the Mozart Akademie in
Amsterdam. He performs regularly with Les
Musiciens du Louvre, Musica Antiqua Köln,
the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century and
the Raglan Baroque Players. He performs as a
chamber musician in the Nepomuk Fortepiano
Quintet, the Van Swieten Society and the
Aeole Broken Consort, and in a duo with
fortepianist Riko Fukuda.
Matteo
Imbruno
was
born in Pietramontecorvino, a town in the
heel of Italy. His experience with classical
music started after he graduated from high
school, when he began studying the organ at
the Foggia Conservatory at the age of 19. Later
he enrolled in several master classes given
by organists with international reputations,
including Harold Vogel, Michel Chapuis,
Montserrat Torrent and Michael Radulescu.
Under Radulescu’s guidance he devoted
himself for two years solely to the organ
works of J. S. Bach. Prior to this he had
specialised in Italian organ music of the
15th and 16th centuries under Liuwe Tamminga
in Bologna. This also gave him the
opportunity to become acquainted with organs
of this era. Since 1989 Matteo Imbruno has
lived in the Netherlands where, in 1997, he
earned a 'performing musician' diploma as a
student at the Rotterdam Conservatory
(Bernard Winsemius) and the Utrecht
Conservatory (Jan Welmers). Later he began
studying at the Musikhochschule in Lübeck (Germany)
with Martin Haselböck. Matteo Imbruno is
currently engaged as the organist for the
Oude Kerk Foundation in Amsterdam, where he
has been organising organ series for a
number of years. In addition, he is a
regular concert performer in Europe, Japan
and the USA, and has recorded 4 CDs
featuring various historic organs. (www.oudekerk.nl)
Øyonn
Groven Myhren
has been one of Norway’s foremost and most
charismatic performers for many years. She
has participated in a large number of
festivals, tours, and radio and television
programmes in Norway and abroad, and has
appeared on various CD recordings. In 2002
she was awarded a Spellemannsprisen (Norwegian
Grammy) for folk music along with Odd
Nordstoga. She has won the Norwegian
National Championship in vocal folk music
twice, and has won other prestigious awards.
Øyonn Groven Myhren’s core repertoire is
based on a rich family tradition that can be
traced as far back as the 1700s as well as
on traditional material that she has learned
from collecting on her own. She also uses
old recordings and a variety of written
sources to learn new material. Besides
singing, she plays the seven-string lyre,
which was perhaps the most popular
instrument in the Scandinavian Viking Age
and the High Middle Ages. The lyre is
currently undergoing a renaissance due,
among other things, to her highly developed
performance techniques. www.folkogdans.no
Morten
Jostad,
dramatist and actor, was born in Lillehammer
in 1953. He has extensive experience from
Norway’s chief professional theatres, free
theatre groups and amateur theatres, and has
also worked in Denmark. Jostad’s stage
productions have been presented in a number
of European theatres. He has toured with
fairy tales, literature programmes, lectures
and children’s theatre. His long career
has a broad scope, ranging from translations
and fiction-writing to presentations of his
own and others’ texts as unusually
high-quality one-man shows. Jostad has
published articles on literature and theatre
in a number of journals and newspapers. He
has published plays about authors such as
Petter Dass, Ludvig Holberg and Hans
Christian Andersen. His literary works and
plays are based on a comprehensive
understanding of the sources and subjects
that he writes about. At the same time, he
has a unique ability to make even the most
difficult texts and problems come alive. His
one-man shows, which he writes and performs
on stage himself, are the only ones of their
kind being presented in Norway, and include
a large selection of full-length productions.
Among these, special mention must be made of
his plays about Søren Kierkegaard (Øjeblikket),
Henrik Ibsen and Hans Christian Andersen, as
well as this year’s play about Petter
Dass.
Andreas
Liebig
was born in Gütersloh, Westphalia, in 1962.
He studied music at the Westphalian School
of Sacred Music in Herford, and in 1983 went
to the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik und
Darstellende Kunst in Stuttgart, where he
studied under Dr Ludger Lohmann (organ), Adu
Frederica Faiss (piano) and Helmut
Lachenmann (music theory), among others. He
continued his studies with Martin Haselböck
in Lübeck, Daniel Roth in Paris, Zsigmond
Szathmáry in Freiburg and Sergiu
Celibidache in Mainz. In 1989 a scholarship
from the German Academic Exchange Service
enabled him to study with Dr Hans Haselböck
in Vienna. His international career was
launched in 1988 when he won first prize in
the international organ competitions in
Dublin and Odense. Andreas Liebig has taught
at the Music Academies in Lübeck and Oslo,
and from 1996 to 2001 was cantor at Sagene
Church, often called Nordkantkatedrale,
in Oslo, where he also directed the Oslo
Bach Ensemble. He is Artistic Director for
Krummhörner Orgelfrühling (www.greetsiel.de),
and Internationale Sommerkonzerte Dornum (Holy
organ 1710-11) (www.nachtorgel.de),
among others. He has performed to
enthusiastic acclaim with an extensive
repertoire ranging from the Robertsbridge
Codex to avant-garde works, and has a
full schedule of concerts, radio and
television recordings and master classes,
which takes him to most of the European
countries, Asia and the USA. Liebig has
served as a jury member for international
organ competitions. He has recorded CDs of
organ works by Bach on the historic Wagner
organ in Nidaros Cathedral in Norway as well
as on the famous Schnitger organ at Martini
Church in Groningen, the Netherlands. (www.andreasliebig.org)
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