Gorrlaus Folk music Series
Kenneth Lien (NO) + Helga MyHR (NO) + viola Torros project (DE)
17. October @ 20.00
Kenneth Lien – Mouth harp, Langeleik, Hardingfiddle, Overtone flute.
Helga Myhr (record release!) – Hardingfiddle and vocals
Viola Torros Project (presented in collaboration with :ZANG)
Kenneth Lien is a diverse artist and musician playing mouth harp, langeleik, willow flute and Hardingfiddle. He is working with different mediums of art, playes a range of instruments and works both within traditional music and experimental music with references to black metal, noise and drone. He is currently studying hardingfiddle at NMH and has previously learned from Jan Beitohaugen Granli amongst others. He is also a superb mouth harp player which led him to win Landskappleiken this year in the mouth harp category.
Helga Myhr is a hardingfiddle player and singer from Ål in Hallingdal. She is a strong bearer of traditions and is often improvising her way through the unique songs of her home area. With a big curiosity towards the different timbres of the hardingfiddle, Myhr focuses on the creativity that arises when one delves deeply into the rhythms and tonality of a music tradition.
Myhr is otherwise engaged with different bands and contellations. She has released two critically acclaimed albums with the vocal group Kvedarkvintetten and the debut album of folkmusic group Morgenrode also saw the light of day this spring. Her first solo album will be released this october. The album contains her own experimental interpretations of traditional music from Hallingdal and this concert is a part of her record release tour!
Viola Torros Project is an ongoing research by composer-performers Catherine Lamb and Johnny Chang, which seeks to realise and arrange the compositions of a pre-medieval composer, Viola Torros.
Viola T. was an anonymous composer who worked outside of the religious and academic establishments of her time. In her own practice, she documented her works in a minimally effective way, just enough to communicate with her fellow collaborators but barely enough to preserve a legacy for later generations of enthusiasts of her music.
The concept of ‘research’ referred to by the Viola Torros Project involves studies of various relevant musical styles of the pre-medieval period (arabic, byzantine and indian modes), and investigating possible evolution of melodic and harmonic developments as V. T. might have discovered. Choosing one aspect of such a musical style to focus upon, details are discovered and presented in an arrangement for two violas, often with additional augmentations.
What has norwegian folk music and Viola Torros project in common? One way to see the connection is through Eivind Groven and just intonation.
Eivind Groven suggested already in the 1920s that one should use another system than the european 12-tone equal temperament to understand the tonality of norwegian folk music. Most of the pitches found in the folk music appears as deviations within the equal temperament, wheras in the endless just intonation system, which Eivind Groven is suggesting to utilize, it is possible to describe and identify the countless pitches and scales that are present in the norwegian folk music. Groven claimed that the folk music is very complex and one cannot explain the tonality through a simplified and limited system. This very same system is what Viola Torros project is using to identify and process pitched in their research work.