Friday 6th 4pm — Sunday 8th September 4pm, 2024
We are so excited to be able to have Torbjörn Näsbom and Kirsty Money in the team this year! It’s going to be amazing! This information is not released onto the Halsway website yet – but phone them up and book on. Booking is now live! We can stay on Sunday night and there will be a bunch of us staying.
(Note that there are no total beginners course this weekend and there are no harpas for borrowing due to transport constraints)
Torbjörn Näsbom
We had Torbjörn as a tutor back in 2017. Torbjörn was born and grew up in Uppland and was taught by his father and was privileged to be able to meet and play with the great masters such as Viksta Lasse and Eric Sahlström. Torbjörn went on to train as a violinist at Sveriges Radio’s music school at Edsberg Castle and at the Royal Music Conservatory in Brussels. Then he went on to be employed in the Umeå Symphony Orchestra in the Norrland Opera. In addition to the violin playing Torbjörn started to play the nyckelharpa, which as is the way of the nyckelharpa took over.
Torbjörn plays folk music, but also mixes the nyckelharpa into classical music, mainly from the Baroque period. He has performed as a soloist with Sweden’s Radio Symphony Orchestra, Drottningholm’s Baroque Ensemble, Stockholm’s Baroque Orchestra and symphony orchestras in Umeå, Örebro and Gävle, as well as touring in Europe, Asia and the USA together with the mezzo-soprano Ann-Sofie von Otter.
In 2014 Torbjörn received Zorn’s gold medal with the justification “Virtuoso, masterful and tradition-conscious playing on the violin and nyckelharpa”. The highest award you can receive as a folkmusician.
Unfortunately Gabi Maas is unable to join us this weekend, so Kirsty Money has stepped in.
Kirsty is from British Columbia and studied violin at the Victoria Conservatory of Music, and has further degrees from McGill and Western Universities, as well as her LRSM (UK). Currently she is a member of the first violin section of Symphony Nova Scotia.
Kirsty’s interest in Early Music and living with the Folk traditions in Nova Scotia has also inspired her to take up playing the Swedish Nyckelharpa, an instrument dating from Medieval Northern Europe. Since 2015 she has been studying the instrument and its folk repertoire from Sweden intensely. Through grants from the Canada Council and Arts Nova Scotia she has been to nyckelharpa workshops and festivals in Sweden, the UK and Germany. Principal mentors include Olov Johansson, Josefina Paulson, Magnus Holmström, David Eriksson, and Vicki Swan. Kirsty’s intention is to bring the amazing depth of sound and versatility of the nyckelharpa to audiences in Nova Scotia, and indeed to the rest of Canada.
Vicki Swan
Vicki studied at the Royal College of Music on the double bass. She also plays the various types of bagpipes, flute, recorder, piano and nyckelharpa. On leaving music college Vicki started down the long path of folk music and was only seen on rare glimpses back in classical orchestras. You’ll find Vicki now inhabiting the troll ridden forests on the hunt for new and exciting tunes from the näcken. Vicki plays not only the standard 3-row modern chromatic, but also the 1408 sienaharpa, the 1526 moraharpa, the 1700s kontrabasharpa and the 1800s silverbasharpa. Over the pandemic Vicki has worked tirelessly on a Virtual Music Room to try to help isolated nyckelharpa players remain motivated and focussed on playing and learning. Chances are after all this time alone at home she won’t stop talking at the Halsway weekend! Seeing as this is Vicki’s website we don’t really need a link, but here is one to Vicki Swan & Jonny Dyer:
http://www.swan-dyer.co.uk
Once you’ve booked get in touch to let me know! I get in touch with everyone as soon as I am notified, but I am not automatically notified when people sign up. We have a WhatsApp group and I always make a resources page. If you’ve changed your email address – make sure you get in touch so I can update my records and not send emails to the wrong place!