13th International Days of the Nyckelharpa

Every year in October the castle Burg Fürsteneck in central Germany is filled with nyckelharpa players from all over the world. They all come for the International Days of the Nyckelharpa where you can join continuous and short nyckelharpa workshops on different topics.

Quite often I heard people enthusiastically speaking about this annual event, but so far I'd never attended it, yet. After having played nyckelharpa for almost six years, it's definitely time to go there! Getting there did initially not go particularly smoothly due to car problems: instead of travelling for about 6 hours, it took almost 12 hours to get there... But wow, the weekend was definitely worth the long trip! Around 80 nyckelharpists from 13 different countries all crammed together into the medieval castle in Eiterfeld.

Workshop Didier François (Photo by Karsten Evers)

After the welcome speech and the introduction of all the wonderful teachers, the workshops started in the late evening. This years teachers were Ana Alcaide (ES), Marco Ambrosini (IT/DE), Jule Bauer (DE), David Eriksson (SE), Didier François (BE), Magnus Holmström (SE), Johannes Mayr (DE), and Annette Osann (FR). I had the privilege of taking part in the workshop given by Didier François on "Groovy arrangements and improvisations on European folk music". During his workshop many different aspects of playing were discussed: from improvisation techniques on scales and arpeggios to intrinsic motivation (f.e. the power of thinking positive). In the group we worked on a.o. blues and folk music from Macedonia, Bulgaria, Hungary and Bosnia - so different from the traditional Swedish folk music I normally play on nyckelharpa.

On Friday and Saturday afternoon everyone had the opportunity to take part in short workshops of about an hour, with the same or another teacher. I first took part in the short workshop by Marco Ambrosini on polyrythmical playing (like gamelan music from Indonesia). At first this polyrhythmical playing felt so unnatural, but at the same time very intriguing! Really fun to play together in this way! Next day I chose the short workshop by Ana Alcaide. She taught us two beautiful sephardic songs. Personally, I especially love the melody of Por que llorax blanca niña.

The surrounding landscape

For some fresh air and movement there was also enough opportunity during the lunch breaks. The weather was perfect for a delightful walk through the sunny fields of Eiterfeld. Dark blue clouds at the horizon gave even more autumnal colour to the beautiful hilly landscape.

Getting bored at Burg Fürsteneck is just impossible! Even in the evenings there's lot to do, see, play, listen, or people to meet. Friday evening started with the interesting Nyckelharpa Conference on recent developments. First Magnus Holmström discussed the in Sigtuna found object from the 12th century, which very likely might be a nyckelharpa key! Although many objects were discovered during the excavation besides the market, only one key was found, or preserved. I'm curious what a carbon dating will tell us more. Next Per-Ulf Allmo spoke about his newly written publication on the history of the nyckelharpa, titled 'Framlades then stora Nycklegijga: En avhandling om den svenska nyckelharpans tillkomst'. Although I haven't finished reading it yet, I can highly recommend his book. The book, though, is only published in Swedish but in time a summary in English (and probably also in German) will follow.

Teachers concert (Photo by Karsten Evers)

After another wonderful workshop day, the hall of the castle swiftly filled with visitors for the concert Saturday evening. The concert started with the participants of the European Nyckelharpa Training, from both the Italian as the German track. The second part of the concert was given by the teachers. Wow, the concert was sooo beautiful! During the whole event there was also a nice exhibition/forum for builders where you could try other instruments and bows. I was impressed by the beautiful snakewood bows made by the French bow maker Aurélie Georges. And of course, what's a music weekend without wonderful jam sessions until very, very late!? Learned some lovely new tunes there after midnight.

All by all, the International Days of the Nyckelharpa is a perfect event to learn more about the versatility of the instrument, try other nyckelharpa's and bows, listen and play beautiful music, and meet amazing people. Don't doubt, go there next year!

The final presentation of all workshop groups (Photo by Karsten Evers)