Join us this January to hear the beautiful folk music of Norway on handcrafted Hardanger Fiddles. 

Featured performers will Robert “Bud” Larsen, master fiddler and luthier of Brainerd, MN, and Fargo Spelemannslag, a local troupe of players Larsen mentored. The hour-long concert will include Hardanger fiddle history and cultural contexts for songs. The concert will be followed by a reception of Scandinavian goodies. This concert is part of the international commemoration of 200 years of Norwegian immigration to the US.

Hardanger fiddle is the national folk instrument of Norway, and as this region has a large population of Scandinavian descendants, the music, history, and cultural traditions of the instrument are important to provide here.

The Moorhead-Fargo community has enjoyed a recent resurgence in interest in making and playing Hardanger fiddles. Larsen, now in his 80s, was apprenticed as a teenager to Gunnar Helland, the last of a Norwegian family of Hardanger fiddle makers. Bud has been transmitting the Helland method of the unique folk art of Hardanger fiddle-making over the last 20 years of his 40 years as a master luthier to apprentices supported by the North Dakota Council on the Arts, LRAC, the Sons of Norway and the National Endowment for the Arts.

This event is supported in part by a grant from the Lake Region Arts Council through the Minnesota State Legislative appropriation; The Arts Partnership with support from the Cities of Fargo, Moorhead, and West Fargo; and the Fargo-Moorhead Area Foundation.