At Bachtrack, we’re lucky to learn about a wide mixture of classical music festivals happening around the world. From Baroque music with fireworks and palm trees in Florida to contemporary music in Iceland, the scope of classical festivals is truly vast. Every festival, it seems, comes up with an innovative way in which to distinguish itself from others, and the result is an exceptionally diverse range which epitomises the increasingly exciting, open spirit of music programming today.
It seems that the niche of this year’s Northern Lights Festival, the 26th such festival taking place in the beautiful, snowy surroundings of Tromsø, northern Norway, is in fact musical eclecticism itself. As well as a keen emphasis on the classical music in which the festival has traditionally excelled – the Mariinsky Opera and Ballet are both past visitors – this year there were also numerous other events on the bill, from cabaret shows, to pop concerts, to jazz. As someone used to a relatively segmented musical culture in London, where musical genres all have largely their own crowds, what struck me most about the festival was how seamlessly the events all connected, and also how considerably the audience seemed to overlap between even radically different things.
Even by the second day of my stay, for instance, I was thinking nothing of a transition straight from a pretty hard-edged concert of new classical music from the young Konsen Sinfonietta to a gentle pop gig featuring Anneli Drecker, a local girl who has found success in Europe. Both concerts, though musically divergent, were marvellous celebrations of creativity; although it’s a matter of taste, there are no intrinsic reasons why both events can’t be enjoyed equally. It was a delight to hear such different music simply be allowed to be itself, under the single tolerant and appreciative banner provided by the festival.
Another musical highlight was Bolero Berlin, a jazz ensemble mostly made up of musicians from the Berlin Philharmonic – possibly the biggest name in the programme during my stay (though the festival later saw such stars as Tine Thing Helseth and Christian Lindberg). They combine the pristine musicianship to be expected of such players with an obvious passion for their repertoire of mostly Latin American dance music. While this meeting of styles might at first seem incongruous, the result is entrancing; hardly groundbreaking or difficult from a jazz perspective, but presented in the most beautiful, affectionate way. Strangely, both this group and the impressive, versatile swing band Christianssand Ensemble provided versions of Duke Ellington’s classic song “Caravan”; the difference between the refined nature of the former version and the raucousness of the latter epitomises the huge musical diversity the festival embraces.