2007 – 2008
In 2007 Nedland Kultur was approached by the committee responsible for the 100 years celebrations in 2008 of Olav H. Hauge, one of Norway’s most central poets in the last half of the 20th century. The committee was planning several events during 2008 to focus on Hauge’s life and work, and they had decided to ask Nedland Kultur’s Sigbjørn Nedland to be project leader and musical producer of a CD with a selection of Olav H. Hauge’s poems.
Respect and fearless innovation.
A national treasure of poems has to be approached with respect and awe, but at the same time one must not be afraid to do new and surprising things to install something new and artistically titillating into well known works of art.
Producer Sigbjørn Nedland started by creating small packages of selected poems that was personally dedicated to each individual of a very varied group of artists. They were then to choose the one of the assigned poems that they felt they could do the best musical interpretation of.
Almost every single artist approached took up the challenge, and development of 11 musical interpretations of Olav H. Hauge’s poems started. Interpreters ranged from rappers to rockers via pop artists to performers of traditional Norwegian fiddle music.
Olav H. Hauge (1908–1994) lived nearly all of his life in his native Ulvik in Western Norway, where he worked as a gardener. His poetry is now seen as one of the main achievements of twentieth-century Norwegian literature,and Hauge is considered a major figure of twentieth-century European poetry. Nedland Kultur was very honoured to be asked to develop and produce a CD in honour of Olav H. Hauge. On the right you can see a couple of his best known poems:
Valkyrien Allstars, Runar Gudnason from Side Brok, Heidi Marie Vestrheim
A challenging task.
Making an album like this is not something you take lightly. Many discussions, several sketches and many proposals circulated in the “think tank” that consisted of the invited artists and the producer. Recordings took place in three different studios, and a lot of work went into creating a coherent and fully rounded album, while at the same time allowing a rich diversity of musical styles.
The logo of the Olav H. Hauge Center in Ulvik.
From left: Bjørn Eidsvåg, Niko Valkaepää, Jan Eggum, Unni Løvlid
nedlandkultur.com 