Geilo Ice Music Festival

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The Geilo Ice Music Festival is an annual classical music festival in Geilo , Norway , where the instruments are made exclusively from ice. It was brought into being by the Europe-wide known percussionist Terje Isungset , who also comes from Geilo. The event is considered the world's first ice music festival.

history

Isungset had the idea of ​​using ice as the basis for classical instruments in 1998 when he was commissioned to play at a frozen waterfall for the Winter Festival in Lillehammer. During the period of conceptual work and the actual implementation of this idea, he was commissioned by an ice hotel in Sweden to develop instruments for their celebration of the turn of the millennium . The ensuing concert led Isungset to “fall in love” with this type of instrument. This was followed by a period of experimentation and the first concerts, from which the idea developed in 2005 to implement a festival with ice instruments. The first edition took place in 2006. Since then, the continuation has always followed on the first full moon night of a new year - despite the sub-zero temperatures, always as an open-air concert . Against this background, the organizers wrote the warning "Remember warm clothes!" in the programs.

Instruments

In the preparation of the festival, the main work is the production of the ice instruments. The material is cut out of the surrounding ice in blocks with chainsaws, divided and then shaped “in fine work with knives and drills”. The instruments - such as ice guitars, ice violins and ice harps - are created on site and not until shortly before the concerts. They are constructed jointly by the musicians with "specialists from all over the world", including the US ice artist Bill Covitz. In total, it takes up to five days for this work to be completed.

Depending on the instrument, ice is used from different sources. According to Isungset, glacier ice is only suitable for the horn due to the trapped air bubbles . The ambient temperature also plays a role in the sound: At minus 20 degrees Celsius, the greatest richness of sound can be produced by ice percussion, while at temperatures around freezing the sound loses its fullness. He also has to produce a lot of rejects, since the ice does not deliver constant quality: For example, “of a hundred similar-looking sticks” that Isungset carves out of the ice for his percussion instruments would sound “maybe five”, the rest are mute. Instruments such as the horn, on the other hand, can only be used for a single concert due to the air you breathe, which melts the ice.

getting there

Geilo is three and a half hours away from Bergen and Oslo by train. From the train station it goes to the foot of the Kikuttoppen mountain and from there by ski lift. The final passage is a narrow footpath, at the end of which there is an amphitheater made of meter-high walls of snow.

International reception

The event is perceived throughout Europe and worldwide. In addition to a number of Anglo-Saxon media such as the BBC , Daily Telegraph and Vice (with video), there are also reports from Swiss and Chinese media and the English-language program of Deutsche Welle .

In 2013 Terje Isungset's ice music celebrated its Austrian premiere in Bludenz in Vorarlberg .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Monika Hippe: Instruments made of ice: sound check at minus five degrees. In: tagesspiegel.de . December 28, 2008, accessed July 8, 2018 .
  2. ↑ a b Ice musician brings music to UK. In: bbc.com. January 6, 2011, accessed July 8, 2018 .
  3. ↑ a b Julia Großmann: Ice Music Festival: The singing ice cream from Geilo: Terje Isungset. In: geo.de. January 15, 2014, accessed July 8, 2018 .
  4. ^ A b c d Stefan Franzen: Ice Music Festival: All in white. In: fr.de. January 13, 2009, accessed July 8, 2018 .
  5. ↑ a b c d Helge Bendl: Cool sounds. In: welt.de . January 17, 2010, accessed July 8, 2018 .
  6. ↑ Bettina Ritter: The sound of ice. In: deutschlandfunkkultur.de. September 16, 2009, accessed July 8, 2018 .
  7. ^ Ivan Hewett: Ice music: the coolest music in the world. In: telegraph.co.uk. January 5, 2011, accessed July 8, 2018 .
  8. ↑ Arielle Duhaime-Ross: Ice, ice, baby. In: Vice.com . February 23, 2017, accessed July 8, 2018 .
  9. ↑ Johanna Stöckel: Colorful cold kaleidoscope. In: NZZ. January 31, 2016, accessed July 8, 2018 .
  10. ↑ Ice music festival takes place in Geilo, Norway. In: german.xinhuanet.com. February 11, 2017, accessed July 8, 2018 .
  11. ^ Sarah Willis: Sarah's Music: Ice Music Festival in Norway. In: dw.com. February 19, 2016, accessed July 8, 2018 .
  12. ↑ Christa Dietrich: Ice cream sounds really hot. In: vn.at. January 19, 2013, accessed July 8, 2018 .