I'm sitting in front of the stage at the Copenhagen Concert Hall waiting for the opening night of WOMEX 2009 to begin. I'm in a beautiful concert hall that I'm told was built about a year ago. It designed with acoustics in mind and I can't wait to hear what it sounds like.
The opening act is a special local talent showcase called The Great Nordic Band. Here is what the WOMEX 2009 websites says about this performance...
"WOMEX is proud to announce a special, exclusive event for the Opening Concert – the Great Nordic Night, presented in association with the Danish Folk Council. In Danish Broadcasting’s great Koncerthuset, a newly built concert venue in Copenhagen, an all-star Nordic band takes to the stage with artists from Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, the Faroe Islands, Samiland and Greenland. Danish fiddler Harald Haugaard has created and will direct this once-in-a-lifetime concert experience.
Traditional Nordic music continues to live and develop . It constitutes part of the common as well as the individual identity in Nordic culture, and exists to this day in its authentic forms such as Sami joik, Danish sønderhoning and Swedish kulning as well as in updated contemporary versions.
The Great Nordic Night tells the tale of the life, history and nature of the Nordic peoples through music, song and light, and the concert introduces the multiplicity, the shades, not to mention the force of ancient Nordic music in a modern tone. The bedrock on stage is The Great Nordic Band, counting some of the very best musicians on the current traditional and contemporary Nordic music scene, including Roger Tallroth (guitar), Ragnhild Furebotten (violin) and Tapani Varis (bass).