So the “most beautiful adventure of spring” has begun. The first day has been completed, and salt peanuts* has been in place with a relatively large staff of employees. For those of us who spend most of our time in the local area, there has been a lot of talk around the coffee tables about what this year’s festival would be like.
Many of the locals have felt a bit alienated in relation to the programming. There are not many artists they know from before, and among Norwegians it is almost a law that you should not try out things you have not heard from before. In addition, the weather has been a topic of conversation. It has rained and snowed, and been cold in recent weeks, and for “Palm Sunday”, the Meteorological Institute, Western Norway Department, has not exactly been partying with jazz.
But it is this weekend that we will get the answer to everything we have discussed around the “12-table” at Café Stasjonen, at Ringheimskafeen, over a beer at Skrot and at Tre Brør, or when you have met more and more returning Vossians as the weekend has approached.
Opening with cultural conference: Does the Minister of Culture dare to twist an increase in the ministry’s framework in favor of the free field? For several years, Vossa Jazz has hosted a cultural conference on the opening day of the festival. This year, a top-heavy team was assembled with Minister of Culture Lubna Jaffrery at the helm. salt peanuts* were present at the first part where Jaffery was first interviewed by program host Randi Fuglehaug and later took part in a sofa conversation together with senior professional advisor at the Norwegian Cultural Forum, Hannah Wozene Kvam, musician Andreas Rotevatn and Gry Bråtømyr, general manager of the Norwegian Jazz Forum.
The conference was kicked off by the aforementioned Rotevatn who played a multi-part solo trombone, not in the Albert Mangelsdorff style, but with clever use of electronics. A stunningly great performance!
Before the sofa conversation, Sigrid Røyseng, professor and cultural researcher at the Norwegian Academy of Music, had explained the political processes that led to the creation of the Norwegian Cultural Fund in 1965 and the expanded cultural concept through New Cultural Policy. Supplementary report to the Storting report no. 8 (Storting report no. 52, 1973–1974).
Newly appointed Director of the Directorate of Culture Øystein Strand explained the differences between the institutions Norwegian Cultural Fund, the Arts Council and the Directorate of Culture and showed the decision-making structure, legal basis and distribution of resources in the various cultural areas.
In the lecture “Art and culture where people live”, Hannah Wozene Kvam emphasized what is already a well-known trend, that culture is a budget loser when the municipal economy is weak. She nevertheless allowed herself to ask the question whether cultural life had a rationalization potential through various collaborative initiatives.
The Minister of Culture has previously said that it is now the turn of the free field. She brought this up in the aforementioned sofa conversation partly in response to quite alarming figures presented by Bråtømyr. An article in Jazz in Norway states: “Club reports from the same number of organizers in 2015 and 2025 show pretty much the same number of concerts, respectively. 2319 and 2327, while the number of musicians on stage has decreased by a full ten percent during these ten years, from 12120 in 2015 to 10935 in 2025″. The explanation Bråtømyr gave for the alarming figures is the real decrease in the allocations from the Arts Council to the organizing field during this period.
Does the Minister of Culture dare to twist an increase in the ministry’s framework in favor of the free field? Even though the institutions have historically been budget winners, they will not tacitly accept a preferential distribution to the free field. In addition, the Storting orders the government to spend money on gasoline and diesel subsidies. Maybe the cultural investment is going up in smoke? (LM)
Come home: Synnøve Brøndbo Plassen had the honor of holding the first concert at the festival. Voss Sparebank provided the concert venue as usual, and the manager himself both introduced and said goodbye after the concert with warm humor that set a good mood from the start.
Synnøve is well-awarded: previously nominated twice for the Spellemannprisen for her solo albums, and this year she received the Spellemannprisen in the “Traditional Music” class, together with Bendik Qvam and Ola Sveinsson. In 2022 she received the Folkelarmprisen for best solo album. In 2024 she received the King’s Cup in folk singing during the Landskappleiken in Gol. She is also a member of the vocal trio HEKATE, which visited the Osa Festival in 2025.
The hall in Voss Sparebank is long and narrow, and offers challenges. For the closest rows, the room is acoustic and intimate – a setting where Plassen’s voice and string instruments address her directly, while the audience in the seats further back reasonably has a more distant relationship with the artist. But Synnøve’s voice carries well, and she has a nice and clear delivery of lyrics that reaches well even further back in the hall.
The concert started with a nice version of “Kom heim” – with sure guitar playing in good folk tradition – directly followed by two songs, highly danceable, rock-solid rhythmically and with convincing power that would carry over the noisiest dance floor.
The program was varied, where she alternated between accompaniment on guitar, on lyre and pure solo vocals. She came across lures and hymn tunes; “Balladen om Sven Svane”; “Falske venn” after Hilmar Alexandersen, and much more. She ended with “Bom-bom-leken” – a springleik where the trolling quite rightly usually starts with the words “bom-bom”.
Synnøve showed that she has a large register to play (or rather: sing) in, both in tonal register, dynamic range, and communicative expression. A hall, which was well occupied already 20 minutes before the concert started, greatly appreciated joining Synnøve’s musical journey in the folk music landscape. (TF)
Opening with a bang – Bjørnstad – Jaffrey: The eternal duo
We know it’s time for Vossa Jazz, the most beautiful fairy tale of spring, when Styve from Evanger picks up his neverlure and plays Heime på steinane by Per Indrehus, or the Vossa Jazz anthem. Then we know that we’re back at it. We can sing it by heart, we can tune in, we can sing along. But we’ll leave it alone, because the sound of the natural tones from Jørn Styve’s lur over a droning accompaniment by Jørund Indrehus on keyboards, is best left alone.
This year’s festival poet, Ketil Bjørnstad himself, comes on stage. It’s as pure as when Hallstein Bronskimlet d.a.y. steps forward and draws out the big lines. An overture, a prologue. A preface where the Vossa Jazz story floats over the waters. Bjørnstad traces the lines back to his first participation at Vossa Jazz at the first festival, during the World Cup weekend in 1974. Humorous, a twinkle in the eye, but also a conveyance of historical insight. Even though the form of the work was difficult to perceive in the stories. Regardless: Free – at last. It is the poet himself who reads.
The sta(t)skled festival director Frøydis Århus welcomes and calls the cultural director-of-all-cultural directors Lubna Jaffrey onto the stage to open the festival. It is one of the few times that we get an opening speech at a music festival by a national politician who is fact-based, insightful about local history, and humorous, and devoid of platitudes and prejudices about what jazz is. It is not inconceivable that the composition of the political leadership in the Ministry of Culture could have something to do with the matter! And thank you for that!
Opening concert from Molde, Grenland, Hokksund and the world
And so … and so! The opening concert, you can set the clock after Vossa Jazz’s opening concert. Same procedure as every year, James … John and Jostein … and Daniel. Daniel Herskedal is a landscape painter with large strokes on the bass trumpet and tuba. As in the last, a little over ten years since they took the train east with the Slow Eastbound Train, there are two more masters who are lining up, percussion virtuoso Helge Norbakken and sublime fortepiano by Eyolf Dale.
I have secured what is usually at a concert the ‘position of death’, right in front of the drummer/percussionist. With a drummer right in front of you, it is sometimes not possible to listen to anything else in a tsunami of euphoria. There was a reason why the drummer was placed as far away from the microphone as possible, as music recording was based on mechanical technology before about 1925-30. So not today: I knowingly and intentionally sit right in front of Norbakken, to take in all the nuances, details, and richness of expression.
They start like last year’s album release Movements of Air, reviewed on salt peanuts*, with “The Olive Branch”. “The Seeds of Language” from The Roc, before “Peace River Crossing”. Many in today’s news picture could have benefited from crossing the peace river, taking a peace pipe and listening to Herskedal and the trio. Starting from the end of the peace-painting song, with a fresh and bold tonal major + 11 – Dale can inform me about later, or + 4 – the fourth in a major scale – if you like, Dale embarks on a rubato play over this chord that lets the sun shine right into the innermost corners of Vossasalen.
A melting play that should be printed and included in classic (neo-)romantic literature. It evokes memories of a created memory, a memory of December 22, 1808 in the Theater an der Wien. After Ludwig from Betehagen had premiered his fifth and sixth symphonies, the program featured a fantasia performed extemporaneously – ex tempore, out of time, that is, improvised. It is claimed in Beethoven literature that this improvisation was later written down by the composer as Fantasia in G minor, opus 77. Dale’s extemporization leads into Herskedal’s “The White Flag” and a free improvisation the trio refers to as “Elements of Harmony”.
“Dancing Dhow Deckhands” – from the 2021 album Harbour – is no slapstick backhand. Dale starts out in a con calma mollified landscape with strong forces simmering beneath the surface. Herskedal’s underground playing, deep down in the inner channels of the tuba he finds the notes, settles into the body’s nerve pathways so that all the hair follicles on the body straighten up in tight alert. The sound of the goose flock’s feathers whizzes through the room. “We Belong to Each Other” – we don’t just belong together, we belong (to) each other. Music is so much more than easily conveyed emotions. Music has a power far stronger than gunpowder and atomic bombs. If only we let it work.
“The Mediterranean Passage in the Age of Refugees” – migration on a large scale. How many people think that the Mediterranean, this inner basin with surroundings that the ancients once believed encompassed almost the entire world, is the same name that the old Norse mythmakers gave the earthly world after Odin and his friends, Midgard, the world in the middle, Middle Earth. But Midgard is our home, and not our private property. And in our home we welcome guests and those in need. There is a reason why the friendly and open reception of strangers is treated in the very first verses of Håvamål. Sæl is the one who gives!
Norbakken’s segue into “Mountain of Companions” is a perk party. Quirky, out-of-shape, dancing west of the watershed, together with friends and relatives. You just have to give yourself over; neck over head over end. “The Mariner’s Cross” from Harbour ends the concert, before we get “Eternal Sunshine Creates a Desert” from The Roc. Rune Børø must also be highlighted, sound magic that separates b from p and tick from takk. The richness, breadth, and diversity of dynamic expression must be packaged and presented so that we can listen to the details.
Breathe in! Breathe out! Then it’s one year until the next opening concert. Same procedure next year, miss Sofie!
Prophets in your own village
The Red Barn is proof that it is possible to become prophets in your own village. True, guitarist and lap steel player Mathias Marstrander is from Høvik in Bærum, but he has attended the Grieg Academy in Bergen and has become a key figure in Bergen’s music scene. The family of saxophonist and clarinetist Aksel Røed has a cabin in Voss, and bassist Arne Toivo Fjose and drummer Kåre Opheim grew up in Voss. So prophets in your own village – definitely! The reason they have been given this status is the gospel they preach.
They opened with the most typical country pastiche on their entire debut album, “Blue Stream,” but in contrast to that on the album, Røed added some Sonny Rollins-style riffs for good measure. They followed up with perhaps the rockiest song on their debut album, The Red Barn’s “Mr. Goomba.” On the third song, they gave us a taste of what was to come. The song “Abduction” with some folk music references was played quite freely by the band. It’s not particularly meaningful to put a label on The Red Barn’s music. Eclectic jazz-Americana might be suggested for those who absolutely must have a category. However, there are some features of the structure and the musical progression that follow a pattern.
Toivo Fjose himself is anchored and Røed has a loose rein and can allow himself a lot of antics, something that is done with bravura and distinct references to saxophone pioneers in jazz history. Opheim and Marstrander drive and struggle and stretch in the groove, and so it progresses in its own shaky, sauntering and incredibly charming way.
The highlight of a brilliant concert was the Twin Peaks-esque “Prairie Waltz” with a sparkling guitar intro by Marstrander, a leaden blues chorus by Røed and a choir on the lap steel where Marstrander got to show off all sides of the instrument. Then we get to see the big picture of the fact that they did not agree on how the encore went.
Into Henriette’s unique musical world
The flute is not among the usual solo instruments in jazz history, but Henriette Eilertsen is making an effort to correct this imbalance, among other things by being the first in Norway to take a bachelor’s degree in performing jazz with the flute as her main instrument at NMH. In 2024 she received the musician award at the Kongsberg Jazz Festival, and it was the first time the award went to a flutist.
Henriette’s flute is the clearly dominant instrument in her trio, where she is joined by Joel Ring (cello) and Øystein Aarnes Vik (drums). The cello has not been one of the most commonly used instruments in jazz traditions, but Ring shows the flexibility of the instrument, sonically, rhythmically and melodically, both as a purely acoustic instrument and with the help of various electronic effects. Vik has a soberly set up drum kit in this context, and delivers both rhythmic foundations with a selection of fine grooves, and sonorous comments. On March 14, 2026, the trio released their first album, Moder, on Motvind Records. The concert in Vangskyrkja at Vossa Jazz comes just two weeks after the album’s release.
Henriette invited us into her unique musical world, which is primarily defined by the sound and the rhythm, where short melodic phrases and ostinatos function more as part of the sound than lines that attract their own attention.
The trio’s close interaction did not prevent each of the musicians from appearing with clear, personal voices, in an original sound universe that suited the acoustics of the church room.
Suddenly we understood what the Greek concept kairos means!
The Nordfjord native and now Oslo resident Andreas Rotevatn, trombone, keyboards and vocals, has made a name for himself as a composer and orchestra leader in the 2020s, first through several projects with the composer orchestra OJKOS and most recently through the release of Av daude gror (2024) under his own name.
For the concert in Gamlekinoen he brought Sander Nordahl, guitar, Nikolai Hængsle, bass and Elias Tafjord, drums. On the fifth song, this quartet was first visited by flutist Henriette Eilertsen and a couple of songs later Gabriela Garrubo, vocalist, took over for Eilertsen. The repertoire was mainly taken from Av daude gror, but Eilertsen had a brilliant flute chorus on the song “Elephanten” which will be on the next album.
Sometimes something redeeming happens during a concert. You could say that the musicians are playing warm, and suddenly it clicks and the rest of the concert takes place on a completely different level. One had such a moment with Nordahl’s guitar chorus on the song “Berre kom heim”. It was like everything dissolved after this chorus. The whole thing became more organic. Eilertsen and Garrubo took the music in different directions, but the energy was there, and when Nordahl let loose in the closing song “Ovmodmood” with a real tour de force of a guitar solo, it was as if we suddenly understood what the Greek term kairos means! (LM)
Folk music combined with jazz from Shetland
The duo Norman & Corrie takes folk music from Shetland as a starting point, and packages it in their own very personal way, where Norman Wilmore’s saxophone is the main melody instrument, supported by various sounds of different character, partly pre-struck, partly triggered from Norman’s organ pedal controls, and supported by Corrie Dick’s driving drumming.
Norman’s introductions were of the usual Shetland warmth and implied humor, and immediately created a good atmosphere and contact with an enthusiastic audience – up to several Norwegian jazz musicians could learn something here! Of course, the close connection between Shetland and Norway was a point of gratitude, and the unfortunate divorce when Shetland was given away as a dowry to the Danish-Norwegian king Christian 1 mortgaged both archipelagos to the Scottish king James 3 as collateral for the dowry of his daughter Margaret in 1469.
Norman has a wide range of expressions, from gentle, finely phrased and ornamented melodies/songs in the Shetland tradition, to howling, macho saxophone choirs over Corrie’s intense compositions.
Norman & Corrie are building an international career; they played a showcase at Jazzahead in Bremen last year, and for Vossa Jazz they came straight from the prestigious club Ronnie Scott’s in London. The duo’s debut album Twa Double Doubles was released in November 2024.
Dronete and rocka
The name Brunborg stands strong in the music scene in Voss. Saxophonist Tore Brunborg always attracts many local fans when he visits his hometown to perform a concert. Be it at Voss jazz club, Vossa Jazz or on other occasions when he is “called home” from the capital area. And among Tore’s descendants, there are several excellent musicians. His daughter Siv Øyunn is very successful as a drummer, especially in Denmark, where she lives, and his son Birk is a musical artist who is constantly making his mark on the modern Norwegian music scene.
Tore’s other son, Håkon Brunborg, had this year had the opportunity to show himself as an outstanding musical artist in Ungdomshallen, together with a band consisting of Jenny Berger Myhre on synthesizer, electronics and clarinet, Anna Ueland and Therese Aune on synthesizer, and if you followed the program, it was Hans Hulbækmo on drums, percussion and drum machine, but the drum chair had been taken over by Kim Åge Furuhaug..And the percussionist was Rino Sivathas (there always needs to be at least two musicians to replace Hulbækmo). Brunborg himself played electric guitar, pedal steel and sampler.
I must admit that my visit to the Youth Hall, for health reasons, was far too short, but the sequences I got to see were extremely exciting. With a drone-like “play” where Brunborg instructed the other musicians with his guitar in the best possible way, they suddenly turned in a more rock-like direction, and we got songs that point “straight” forward for Norwegian jazz.
He has an excellent band with him, consisting of some of the most forward-looking and “new” improvising musicians on the Norwegian improvisation scene, and he creates musical developments that promise well for the future.
