Meeting In The Mountain

EM53 / 2008

This album is the result of an encounter between the Norwegian folk music artist Svein Westad, and music teachers at the Nepal Music Centre in Kathmandu. In 1997, Svein was invited by the folk dance group Anam Dharan, whom he had met in North Korea some years earlier, to give a concert in Kathmandu. Before leaving Norway, he was recommended by Rikskonsertene to do a work shop with musicians at the NMC. The Nepal Music Centre is a recently finished joint project between Music Nepal in Nepal, and Rikskonsertene, sponsored by the Norwegian Agency Development Co- operation (NORAD). This meeting turned out to be so successful, that Svein invited his Nepali music colleges to join him in the concert at the Gurukul music theatre in Kathmandu. A few days later, they also recorded some of the tracks on this CD in the Music Nepal studio.The Norwegian Munnharpe and Seljefløyte are both natural scale instruments, thus seemingly different in character from the Nepali Bansuri and the Sarangi. Nevertheless, the instruments harmonized perfectly when brought together, thanks to the players’ skill in adapting their instruments to the mood of the music. Thus, Nepali and Norwegian tunes are mixed into new musical expressions, that may be recognised as within both nations’ own music traditions.