As I approach my first Christmas in Norway, the diary is getting notably busier with various services, concerts and events.
Last week I took part in the Dønnahorn concert in Solfjellsjøen. It was a much bigger event than the previous one. The main feature of the programme was a performance of music from the Planet Earth tv series which played along to videos and a Norwegian commentary. It was great fun to be part of and once again I thought the band played really well. The concert began with most of the players out in the hall surrounding the audience with the percussion section/ tubas on the stage. Once we got to a certain point we in the percussion section had to play a riff over and over again until the rest of the band resumed their seats. Slightly challenging was the fact that the riff was 7 bars of 7/8 followed by a bar of 9/8 and of course was on a page turn. Not entirely convinced I got it write every time but I ploughed on with Will Todd's "style over accuracy" phrase ringing round in my head and it all seemed to work out fine. The audience really enjoyed the programme and gave the performers a standing ovation at the end.
Even more exciting (no offence to the band intended ) was the fact that as I waited for my lift down to my first rehearsal I managed to see the northern lights. It's an appallingly bad picture (must buy a camera) but seeing the northern lights was literally number one on my things to do in Norway so was delighted to get that ticked off.
I attended my first in-person Norwegian class as well which was fun. Nice to meet the teachers and people who are also in the same boat as me. As I write this it occurs to me that I think it was the first time I had met my teacher properly. It was good to sit in the same room and chat over a cup of coffee. That makes it sound like a v fluent conversation was had which it really wasn't and my brain does hurt after an hour of non-stop Norwegian :-)
In our previous zoom call we had ended up talking about Emerson Lake and Palmer - one of my favourite bands. Edel Anne then asked me if I liked Yes - not an unrelated to group to ELP - so I enthused appropriately "ooh I love Yes". Then it transpired she had said "jazz" so a quick redirection was called for and I talked about Todd's Mass in Blue etc.
in Norway it's compulsory to change to winter tyres - Bård, sensing my complete useless with anything mechanical, kindly came up with me to Laila's place and helped me change tyres. And when I say helped, I of course mean he did it all and I just moved the car and brought the winter tyres and took away the summer ones.
While all this is going on, I still had my homework to do for the Tromsø organ course - write an essay "reflecting on the difficulties and challenges of being an organist in the church of Norway"
As is the case with this blog, often the hardest thing is coming up with a sentence that will get the "creative juices" going. Not necessarily being the sharpest tool in the box I did find it a struggle and I'm not sure (haha, no it's definitely not!) it's the greatest contribution to organ literature but at least I got it done. It's one thing writing these blogs where I can sit with my diary and look at my pictures and write a narrative - being creative and analytical is, I fear, not in my skill set. I think in my accompanying email I wrote an apology for it and commenting that fortunately I was employed for my organ playing rather than writing!
This week I was back in Tromsø for part 2 of the organ course. My employers kindly agreed to let me stay an extra night so I could do some exploring while I was up there. They just booked my flight on the Wednesday rather than Tuesday and I paid for the extra night at a hotel. This time I was prepared for what was coming so was in a much better state of mind. I actually met one of my course colleagues on the flight from Bodø to Tromsø which probably helped a lot. As we were waiting for one of the course leaders at the airport (to share a taxi) I saw an advert for a Northern Lights tour which looked fun. Not cheap but I bore it in mind with the intention of the seeing whether the skies looked clear or not on the day.
I made much more effort this time to talk to people and even regaled them with the "entertaining" anecdote of popping a sweet into my mouth just before playing a piece of organ music and the facial recognition page turning app going bananas.
As well as the various seminars we all contributed to a Mass held in the Kroken kirke on the Monday evening. My contribution was the preludium and first hymn. Delighted that it was Praise my Soul by John Goss - a good rousing tune. Afterwards we all went out for a rather delicious meal at a restaurant - not being famed for the ambitiousness of my culinary tastes I was a bit nervous about what we were to eat. As there were so many of us the restaurant just wanted to give us all the same so an online poll was held and whatever menu received the most votes was what we would be served. At least that's what I think that's what happened. Fortunately all turned out well and we all ate extremely well.
The course finished on the Tuesday afternoon with the presentation of our certificates and an assessment of our performances the day before. Not entirely sure what was said about me but I like to think it was complimentary and there was a comment about the tempo I took the hymn... Very kindly, one of the leaders approached me afterwards and said he thought I'd make a very good church musician in Norway and he hoped that I would stay. I was also been invited up to Bodø at some point to do a lunchtime concert which was flattering.
After all our farewells I checked into my hotel and went for a potter round the city and bit the bullet regarding the Northern Lights tour. It was 6.45 pm - 2 am and we'd go for a wee jaunt in a minibus, be fed and watered and have a nice fire to warm us up. We drove out from the city into the country side where there was no light pollution and it has to be said the sights were spectacular. Not only did we see the lights in all their glory, just before we left, they were "dancing" in the sky but we also got a fantastic view of the Milky Way. Definitely worth enduring the coldest I have ever been in my life!
As well as the obligatory visits to cafes - I always went to Kaffebønna as it almost looked like Kaffedønna - I managed to fit in a couple of museums before heading back to the airport. First of all was Polaria with its aquarium and seals and then the Troll museum. Despite having seen the Troll museum the day before and using google maps x number of times I couldn't seem to find it and walked past it many times. Finally I noticed I was standing outside a building with the words "Troll" and "Museum" and that might be a good place to try. It's not a big museum but it's very well done with lots of AR. Even the souvenirs are AR enabled and if I hold my phone over my magnet it looks like there's a troll coming out. All v clever.
Getting to Tromsø was a fairly straightforward affair - ferry and bus to airport. I think the flights back to Sandnessjøen were booked out so it was a lot more complicated getting back - 2 flights, taxi to Mosjøen, bus to Sandnessjøen. As mentioned previously, the bus is timetabled to arrive shortly after the last ferry leaves so rather than risk spending the night in a bus shelter I stay at the hotel and then get a ferry in the morning. Had to be fairly early as I was due to be tinkling the ivories in Herøy at 11.
When I got back from Herøy, Trine showed me pics of previous angels to prepare me for the nativity productions that I have to take part in. Yes - productions. 3 times I've got to dress up. On the plus side, no wings. Really just a white outfit with some tinsel. You'll look exactly like that Graeme, "except without the boobs" she said. Mind you, with the amount of cake being inhaled across here, even that's not guaranteed.
