Music of Minnesota

The music of Minnesota has played a role in the historical and cultural development of Minnesota. As with the culture of Minnesota in general, the state's music scene centers on the Minneapolis-Saint Paul area, and most of the Minnesotan artists who have become nationally popular either came from that area or debuted there. Rural Minnesota has also produced a flourishing folk music scene, with a long tradition of traditional Swedish, Finnish and Norwegian music.Minnesota's modern local music scene is home to thousands of local bands, many of which perform with some regularity. Some performers from nearby regions of neighboring states, such as western Wisconsin and Fargo, North Dakota, are often considered a part of the Minnesota music scene.

Minneapolis has produced a number of famous performers, such as Bob Dylan, who was born in Hibbing and began his musical career in the Minneapolis area, and Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, who eventually formed The Time and produced for Gladys Knight and Janet Jackson. Minneapolis' most influential contributions to American popular music began in the 1970s and 1980s, when the city's music scene "expanded the state's cultural identity" and launched the careers of acclaimed performers like the multi-platinum soul singer Prince, and cult favorites The Replacements and Hüsker Dü. More recently, the Twin Cities has played a role in the national hip-hop scene with artists such as Atmosphere and P.O.S.

Institutions and venues

Music institutions in modern Minnesota include the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, the only full-time professional chamber orchestra in the country, and the Minnesota Orchestra, a pioneering institution that was among the first orchestras to perform on the radio and to record. The Minnesota Orchestra is led by Osmo Vänskä, a Finnish conductor, founded in 1903 as the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra. The Minnesota Orchestra is widely respected in the classical music world, and has toured widely; as of 2005, the orchestra is led by music director Osmo Vänskä, who has recently launched a program to record the complete works of Ludwig van Beethoven. The Minnesota Opera is an important local music institution, and claims to be the sixteenth largest opera company in the United States. The Opera was founded in 1963, as part of the Walker Art Center, and became an independent company in 1969. The Minnesota Opera described its early reputation as "progressive (and) 'alternative'" in comparison to the more staid St. Paul Opera, which merged with the Minnesota Opera in 1975. In the field of folk music, Minnesota has produced the Scandinavian Music Ensemble, a long-running group that performs in the traditional styles of Scandinavian-Americans, particularly Norwegian music.

Industry and media

The Independent Public Radio is a state-wide network of twelve independently-owned stations that play music by local artists. These stations include KFAI, KUMB and KVSC, most of whom also operate Internet radio streams. Local music is also a part of the playlists of Minnesota's college radio stations like the University of Minnesota's Radio K and Macalaster College's WMCN. Most other radio stations in the state are owned by conglomerates like Clear Channel, and play few, if any local artists; they instead use a national radio format, mostly playing classic rock, pop, and contemporary hip hop and R&B. Minnesota Public Radio is also a major part of the Minnesota radio industry; it is one of the most successful public radio organizations in the country, and has grown from a small station associated with St. John's University in Collegeville in 1967, to a part of the American Public Media Group and is now the dominant network of radio stations in the state. Recently MPR launched a new station, KCMP 89.3, The Current, which has gained a cult following throughout the country and indeed throughout the world thanks to its Internet presence.

The Minneapolis-St Paul area is home to a free alternative weekly that promotes local music performers and venues, called the Pulse of the Twin Cities. Minnesota is home to music festivals devoted to several styles of music, including Ironworld U.S.A.'s International Polkafest, Minnesota Bluegrass and Old-Time Music Festival and the Minnesota Folk Festival. The Detroit Lakes annual 10,000 Lakes Festival is an important part of modern Minnesota's music; it features major jam bands and indie rock bands at concerts like WE Fest and the Moondance Jam. The Bayfront Blues Festival is held on Lake Superior in Duluth; the Bayfront Festival promoters also put on the Blues on the Range Festival in Chisholm and the Apple River Blues Festival in Somerset, Wisconsin. The original Bayfront Blues Festival dates to 1989, and it has since grown to become one of the premier blues festivals in the country. The Minnesota blues scene includes several other regionally important festivals, such as the Boundary Waters Blues Festival, founded by Michael Jankovec a radio host on local station WELY, and the St. Paul Bluesfest.

Many local performers record for one of several regional labels in Minneapolis and elsewhere in the state. Some of these labels are well-known in their field, such as Red House, a prominent folk label, and the Twin/Tone indie rock label. In addition to record labels, Minneapolis has been home to several important recording studios. The first studio in the state was Kay Bank, established by studio engineer Bruce Swedien in the 1950s; the studio's first hits were from The Trashmen ("Surfin' Bird") and Dave Dudley ("Six Days on the Road"), which helped popularize a distinctive Kay Bank style based on using three-track recording and echo effects. Herb Pilhofer and Tom Jung worked at Kay Banks before founding Sound 80 in 1969. Sound 80 recorded numerous local artists over the years, ranging from part of Bob Dylan's Blood on the Tracks to works from Dave Brubeck. Though the Sound 80 building was sold in 1990, the studio is now an anechoic chamber labeled the "quietest place on Earth" by the Guinness Book of World Records. Flyte Tyme Productions, a soul and R&B studio led by Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, defined the Minneapolis sound in the 1980s with albums like Janet Jackson's Control. Other important studios in Minneapolis include the Dove studio, which released several cult classic psychedelic and garage rock recordings in the 1960s, and Blackberry Wray, founded by Paul Stark, who would later found the Twin/Tone record label. Blackberry Wray recorded many local alternative rock performers like The Replacements and Soul Asylum, while Twin/Tone was home to The Suburbs and The Fingerprints, among others.

Minneapolis is home to a few legendary record stores, Oar Folkjokeopus (now known as Treehouse Records) and the Electric Fetus, as well as other stores such as Cheapo.

Venues

First Avenue nightclub

Large music venues in Minnesota include the Target Center, Xcel Energy Center, and, more rarely due to poor acoustics, the Metrodome. The Minneapolis/St. Paul area is also home to several small and medium venues, including the Pantages Theatre, Basilica of St. Mary and the Fitzgerald Theater, a major music and theater venue owned by Minnesota Public Radio; defunct but historically important venues include the former cinema, the Pence Opera House, Perpich Center for Arts Education and the Prom Ballroom, which showed many prominent jazz, rock and other bands in the mid-20th century. The most historic and influential small musical venue in the state is First Avenue, a nightclub that initially opened (as The Depot) in 1970; it was soon renamed Uncle Sam's, and became a franchise of the American Events Company, before finally becoming First Avenue in 1978. Outside of the Minneapolis-St. Paul region, important local venues include Chisholm's Ironworld U.S.A., which hosts major country stars, Ralph's Corner, which closed in 2005 but was for many years one of the premier indie rock clubs in the Fargo-Moorhead area, and the municipally-supported Burnsville club The Garage.

Education

Music education is part of the curriculum at Minnesota public schools. All students take music at the elementary and middle school ages, and many choose to take it as an elective in high school, where schools often organize marching bands, choruses or other performance opportunities. The Perpich Center for Arts Education is a charter school which draws students from all over the state and has an extensive modern and classical music education program. Higher education in music is an important part of the programs at several of Minnesota's universities, including the University of Minnesota, which offers the Bachelors of Music degree in music education, therapy or performance, and graduate degrees in education, conducting and musicology. McNally Smith College of Music, a preeminent college of contemporary music based in Saint Paul, offers Bachelors of Music in music performance and music business, as well as Associates Degrees and diploma programs in recording technology.

Elementary school music education introduces elements of music like melody, rhythm and harmony, and examines the music of a "variety of cultures and historical times". Students are expected to perform simply melodies and rhythms and perform songs and on instruments, and to use musical notation. Older students are exposed to more complex forms of music, and more scholarly approaches to music education. Middle school students further learn about "the connection between a work of music, its purpose, and its cultural and historical contexts" and comparisons between music and other art forms. Students also perform and listen to music, and are expected to evaluate performances using personal feelings and objective criteria. At the high school level, performance, critical and scholarly expectations are higher and more complex, and may require participation in extracurricular programs like a school band or chorus.

History

The Apollo Club's 1889 cast of Romeo and Juliet

Music in Minnesota extends prior to historical documentation, with the music of the Native Americans of the area. The Dakota musical traditions of what is now Minnesota are generally based around vocal, percussive and dance music; folk songs among the Dakota can be celebratory, martial or ceremonial . European settlers to Minnesota brought their own tradition of folk and classical music, especially choral and Christian-themed music, opera, and various kinds of ethnic folk music, most prominently including Scandinavian styles. Traditional dance music is based mostly around schottisches, polkas and waltzes with instrumentation including fiddle, button-box, mandola, accordion and banjo .

The first singing school in Minnesota was in St. Anthony (now part of Minneapolis), opened in 1851. Later in the century, the Plymouth Congregational Church of Minneapolis began a singing group in 1857, followed by the first such club for women only, the Lorelei Club (later the Ladies' Thursday Musical Chorus), in 1892..

Thousands of Norwegians settled in Minnesota between 1825 and 1925. Subcultures formed based around village of origin (bygde), and then formed organizations to maintain their home dialect and musical traditions. These organizations held annual meetings (stevne) which featured folk dancing, singing, fiddling and poetry. In the late 1860s, male choirs with primarily Norwegian and Swedish singers formed in cities and Lutheran colleges in Minnesota. These choirs sang a variety of popular and patriotic songs, hymns and folk tunes. In the 1880s, these choirs inspired the organization of singing societies that sponsored music festivals; the largest of these singing societies is the Norwegian Singers Association of America and the Union of Scandinavian Singers.

The end of the 19th century also saw the foundation of two long-running music groups, the Thursday Musical Chorus and the Apollo Men's Musical Group. Two of the most important Minnesota institutions were founded in the early 20th century, namely the MacPhail School of Violin (1907, later becoming the MacPhail Center for the Arts) and the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra (1903, later the Minnesota Orchestra).

1920 image from the MacPhail School of Music and Dramatic Art Yearbook

Minneapolis became a home for vaudeville, especially Scandinavian-American vaudeville. This field was known as bondkomik (Norwegian) or bondkomiker (Swedish), and featured multi-act plays, dances, songs and monologues. Vaudeville shows usually ended with social dancing. Minneapolis' most famous performers were the Olson sisters, Hjalmar Peterson and Ernest and Clarence Iverson (Slim Jim & the Vagabond Kid). After World War 1, Scandinavian musical pride diminished, a process accelerated by economic decline in the 1930s; rural and regional dance music slowly died out and became largely unknown. During this era, however, the Leikarring movement began, which celebrated national Norwegian folk dance and song through musical societies like Minnesota's Norrona Leikarring.

Around the time of World War II, the Andrews Sisters from Minneapolis were very popular. Today they are perhaps best known for the song "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy," which was covered by Bette Midler decades later. There was also a thriving jazz scene at the time of the war. Local radio host Leigh Kamman is linked to jazz in Minnesota, as he has now been covering it for more than sixty years. The oldest recording studio in the state, Kay Banks, was established in 1955 by Bruce Swedien, a recording engineer, using the building of the Garrick Theatre .

Folk music

Minnesota is home to many ethnic groups, but the state's folk music is best known in the areas of Swedish, Finnish and Norwegian musics. These ethnic communities frequently settled near each other, in Minnesota and in Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois, North Dakota and South Dakota, and their musical and cultural identities grew blurred. Norwegians and Swedes very frequently lived near each other in Minnesota, for example, and their music merged into a perceived Scandinavian identity, rather than uniquely Swedish or Norwegian. Their music is perceived as old-time music, and is also influenced by the area's German, Irish, English, Polish and other Northern and Central European musics. This ethnicity is present within the music of Minnesota today and was adopted for the names of various musical groups inclduing those in the Land of Lakes Choirboys.

Norwegian folk dance (bygdedanser) includes participatory social dances and performance dances like springar, springdans, pols, rull and halling. The Norwegian gammeldans tradition continues in ethnic communities in Minnesota, where two-steps, waltzes, polkas, schottisches and mazurkas are know as old-time music. Vocal music includes short poetic songs called stev, emigrant ballads which expressed nostalgia for Norway and express hope, despair and loss about life in the United States. Musical accompaniment includes the accordion, violin, guitar, bass guitar, piano, harmonica, organ, banjo and mandolin. The Norwegian Hardanger fiddle, or hardingfele, tradition has been played at weddings and taverns in Minnesota.

Modern music

Minnesotan musicians from all genres have gained notoriety over the years, with the singing Andrews Sisters gaining worldwide prominence during World War II. The modern music scene includes rock, hip hop and electronic music, and is especially known for punk rock and hardcore. Prior to the evolution of punk in the 1970s, there was little rock and roll tradition from Minneapolis, which author Steven Blush attributed to a lack of anything to "rebel against", noting that it was Minneapolis' friendly atmosphere that made future hardcore punk musicians "crazy and rebellious" The first rock band from Minneapolis to achieve national prominence was the surf rock group The Trashmen who formed in 1962 and had a hit two years later with "Surfin' Bird". That song, along with Dave Dudley's "Six Days on the Road", helped to establish the Kay Banks studio, which would go on to record bands like the Guess Who and would become known for a distinctive sound characterized by three-track recording and the use of echo effects. Dove Studios was another prominent studio in the 60s, known for releasing a series of psychedelic and garage rock singles that have become collector's items, including Calico Wall's "Flight Reaction" and The Litter's Distortions.

Bob Dylan, a Hibbing native, became the first major mainstream solo star from Minnesota in the 1960s, known for his unique lyricism and folk-rock style. He spent a brief period in Minneapolis, attending the University of Minnesota, where he played free shows on the West Bank of the University of Minnesota Minneapolis campus. He was associated with Dinkytown, the local center for young fans of folk music, where he listened to a wide variety of folk and blues. The city's local folk scene produced a few well-known performers in the 1960s, besides Dylan, who spent much of his early career based out New York; these include the guitarist Leo Kottke and the trio Koerner Ray & Glover. Folk music continues to be a major part of the Minnesota music scene, and is broadcast by the Prairie Home Companion, a radio show hosted by author Garrison Keillor; the Red House record label is the most influential local label, and releases records by Peter Ostroushko and Greg Brown, among others.

These influences contributed to the rise of punk rockers Hüsker Dü, Soul Asylum, the Replacements, and the rhythm and blues stylings of Morris Day and the Time and Prince in the 1980s. R&B mega-producing team Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis have origins in the Twin Cities, and jazz musician Lester Young lived there for a time in his youth.

These later sources brought the Minneapolis music scene to national attention; the period from about 1977 to 1987 was a period of incredible dynamism in the Minneapolis music scene, with offshoots in the punk scene including Soul Asylum, Babes in Toyland, the Clams and many other seminal favorites, while Prince's immense power in the industry (which peaked during this period) created a rhythm and blues mini-empire at his Paisley Park Studios, based in suburban Chanhassen.

Contemporary local artists continue to enjoy critical acclaim such as hip-hop duo Atmosphere and frontman Slug's label Rhymesayers Entertainment, the smaller Doomtree, and commercially successful pop-rockers Semisonic. While things have slowed considerably, the Twin Cities are still the region's musical hotbed. The area has also shown an unusual affinity for certain artists. For instance, while largely unnoticed on their home turf in New York City, the Twin Cities accounted for the majority of national sales for Soul Coughing's second album Irresistible Bliss during its first eight weeks of release; this followed from the fledgling fan base that Soul Coughing found here while touring for their first effort, Ruby Vroom.

R&B

Main article: Minneapolis sound

Minneapolis became noted as a center for R&B in the 1980s, when the singing star Prince rose to fame. The city had little history in African American popular music, like R&B, until Prince debuted in 1978. He became the first architect of the Minneapolis sound, a funk and disco-influenced style of R&B, and inspired a legion of subsequent performers, including The Time, Wendy & Lisa and Vanity Six.

In 1980, a group of session musicians, recording as Lipps Inc., recorded the song "Funkytown" at Sound 80 Studios. The song launched the record production careers of Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, whose Flyte Tyme Productions helped define the Minneapolis sound. The pair's first big break was Janet Jackson's Control in 1986, which launched her career and spawned numerous projects between Jam and Lewis with artists as varied as Mint Condition, Michael Jackson, Sounds of Blackness,New Edition,Alexander O'Neal, Cherrelle, The S.O.S. Band, Boyz II Men Patti LaBelle, and many others.

Rock

In the mid-1970s, the local music scene in the Minneapolis area began producing popular and innovative acts. Many signed to major record labels, and by the mid 1980s, had achieved national prominence. The first may have been Lipps Inc , who gained some popularity in the late 1970s during the disco era with the global hit "Funkytown". The Suburbs also formed around the same time. They were the first group to be released under the local Twin/Tone Records label in 1978. Largely only known locally, the group developed a New Wave sound in the 1980s and opened for national acts such as Iggy Pop and The B-52's. Template:Sample box start Template:Multi-listen start Template:Multi-listen item Template:Multi-listen item Template:Multi-listen item Template:Multi-listen item Template:Multi-listen end Template:Sample box end Originally based out of Jay's Longhorn Bar, the Minneapolis hardcore punk scene grew slowly. The Suicide Commandos were perhaps first, and they were quickly followed by Hüsker Dü and The Replacements, who started as hardcore punk bands and became pivotal in the development of alternative rock. The Replacements eventually achieved some limited mainstream success, while Hüsker Dü became the first hardcore outfit to sign to a major label. Soul Asylum was originally a Minneapolis hardcore band called Loud Fast Rules, which played with bands like Man Sized Action, Rifle Sport and Breaking Circus who mixed funk, thrash metal and other influences. The Twin Cities rock scene had fully come to national prominence by 1984, when the Village Voice's renowned critics poll, Pazz and Jop, named three Minneapolis recordings among the top ten of the year: Prince's Purple Rain, The Replacements' Let It Be, and Hüsker Dü's Zen Arcade.

The late 1980s saw new sounds coming out of the state, when Information Society came to the attention of nightclubs and record labels in New York City. The group had formed in 1982 at Macalester College in St. Paul and made an initial release on the local Wide Angle Records label two years later. "What's on Your Mind (Pure Energy)" became a huge hit in 1988, and they continued to make music through most of the 1990s. Beginning in 1986, The Jayhawks began recording, achieving critical acclaim with a modern folk-rock sound.

Another group to form around the same time was Babes in Toyland, an early riot grrl band that saw moderate popularity through the 1990s as well. They toured with Lollapalooza in 1993. Many groups of the 1980s and 1990s eventually split up, and a number of other bands formed from the remnants. Bob Mould left Hüsker Dü to head Sugar and do solo projects. Trip Shakespeare eventually transformed into Semisonic, who gained popularity in the late 1990s. A former member of Semisonic met up with another from Trip Shakespeare to form The Flops.

Hip hop

The Twin Cities region is home to a thriving underground hip hop scene due largely to the presence of Rhymesayers Entertainment. Rhymesayers artists including, among others, Eyedea & Abilities, MF Doom, Brother Ali, Los Nativos, Musab, and, most notably, Atmosphere, began to receive national attention in recent years. Heiruspecs is another notable group. Also recently, the Twin Cities hip hop scene owes some of its success to the annual Twin Cities Celebration of Hip Hop sponsored by Yo! The Movement, and to D.U. Nation's website. Other respectable hip-hop crews of the Twin Cities are Doomtree and Loonatix Productions; of which, Doomtree, seems more punk than Rhymesayers, and the latter, Loonatix, having more of a rock vibe. Most crews have a friendly relationship and perform many shows together. Doomtree includes such artists as; P.O.S, Sims, Turbo Nemesis, and Lazerbeak. Loonatix Productions includes such groups and solo acts as Playaz Lounge Crew (PLC), Ruthless, Professor Fresh, and MC Rentz.

Techno/Dance

Minnesota is home to a burgeoning electronic music scene in the area, though the genre tends to get little radio airplay in the state. Dance music in Minnesota is often played on local pirate radio outlets. The most famous of these was Beat Radio 97.7, started by area programmer and DJ Alan Freed (not to be confused with the Alan Freed who was an early promoter of rock and roll). After his transmitter was shut down by the Federal Communications Commission, Freed brought the music to special programs on several local stations, including during most of 1998 with night-long broadcasts on the former Radio Aahs network, which reached 10 cities around the country. He now programs dance stations of XM Satellite Radio.

References

• "The Jayhawks". Allmusic. Retrieved January 10. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
• "History". First Avenue. Retrieved January 5. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
• "Pulse of the Twin Cities". Pulse of the Twin Cities. Retrieved February 9. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
• "Pitchfork". Minnesota Becomes Eclectic. Retrieved February 9. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
• "Leroy Larson and the Scandinavian Music Ensemble". Retrieved February 9. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
• "Music". A History of Minneapolis. Retrieved January 11. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
• Blush, Steven (2001). American Hardcore: A Tribal History. Feral House. ISBN 09229157177 .
• "History of the Minnesota Opera". Minnesota Opera. Retrieved February 9. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
• Byron, Janet (1996). Country Music Lover's Guide to the U.S.A. (1st ed. ed.). New York: St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-14300-1. {{cite book}}: |edition= has extra text (help)
• "Event Details". Ely Blues. Retrieved February 9. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
• Levy, Mark. "Scandinavian and Baltic Music". Garland Encyclopedia of World Music, Volume Two. New York and London: Garland Publishing. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthor= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• "The Bayfront Blues Festival announces the addition of a new blues festival in 1999". Minnesota Blues. Retrieved February 9. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
• "School of Music". University of Minnesota. Retrieved January 30. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
• "About the Minnesota Orchestra". Minnesota Orchestra. Retrieved February 8. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
• "Minneapolis Music Collection". Minnesota Historical Society. Retrieved January 5. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
• "Minneapolis Music and Nightlife". Minneapolis.com. Retrieved January 12. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
• "Three Tracks, Echo, and a Bunch of Hungry Teenagers". City Pages. Retrieved February 9. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
• Unterberger, Richie (1999). Music USA: The Rough Guide. London: Rough Guides. pp. 317–329. ISBN 1-85828-421-X.
• "Arts standards in 2003 (pdf)" (PDF). Minnesota Music Educators Association. Retrieved January 30. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)

Notes

See also

External links

• Platial Map of 18+ and all-ages venues in the Twin Cities
• MusicScene.org – covering Minnesota and western Wisconsin
• Radio stations - a list of stations and formats in Minnesota
• Minnewiki: The Minnesota Music Encyclopedia – Wiki operated by Minnesota Public Radio
• Fargo Band Family Tree – wiki covering the Minnesota and North Dakota indie music scenes
• McNally Smith College of Music – Twin Cities-based college of popular music performance, production, recording, and business
• Minnesota Public Radio – see also KCMP
• MINNIE INDIE – weekly mailing list of music events in the Minneapolis/St.Paul area.
• Twin Cities Hardingfelelag