NORDLYD 2026

"New horizons"

Denmark and Greenland arrived on Sunday, and Iceland on Monday after a slight delay and a cancelled flight.
We began on Monday by performing the Danish part of the Suite. To summerize - the idea is that we will perform a Nordic suite composed by our four countries: we start in Denmark, travel to Iceland, then to Greenland, and finally finish in Norway.
“The Journey to Denmark” went really well and has in many ways been a very good start to our time here!

Our guests here i Norway are incredibly kind, curious, and open towards one another, so it looks like it will be a truly wonderful week filled with music, dance, creativity, play, and fun. We are excited to see what tomorrow will bring as we travel to Iceland.

Thank you for a great start to the NORDLYD project.

P.S. We have had a perfect day... BUT! Mum and Dad – please send more money for candy! 😄

*Pictures are from our first reherseal monday afternoon.

"Body of Sound"

Today we “traveled” to Greenland with the piece Timaannaq.
Timaannaq means “body”, and we could truly feel that throughout the day.

The atmosphere was incredible – especially through our vocalists in the project. The piece is built as a chant based on vowels, where the human voice becomes both rhythm and resonance. The song is about overcoming challenges, about standing through difficulty and finding strength within yourself. It is the body that sings. The body that resists. The body that rises.

We also learned more about Greenlandic culture and history through the legendary 70s rock band Sumé. They are widely considered the pioneers of Greenlandic rock music. The band was formed in 1972 by Malik Høegh and Per Berthelsen, and their debut album Sumut (“Where to?”) became a cultural landmark. 

Inspired by American rock music, they chose to sing in Greenlandic, and their lyrics were progressive and openly critical of Danish colonial power. We highly recommend watching the powerful documentary Sumé: Mumisitsinerup nipaa (Sumé – The Sound of a Revolution), which tells the story of how music became a voice for identity, resistance, and change.

Experiencing a cultural exchange like this is something we strongly recommend. There is so much to gain from meeting across borders, traditions, and histories — we truly have so much to learn from one another.

Once again, we were treated to great food, and the spirits are high. We also had a visit from NRK radio, who did a live interview with some of our amazing participants (listen to it via the link).

NRK: https://radio.nrk.no/serie/distriktsprogram-rogaland/sesong/202602/DKRO02003926#t=17m28s

Another powerful day at NORDLYD.

"Whispers Before Nightfall"

Today we landed back in Norway, rehearsing the Norwegian part of the suite Lysefjorden. This movement captures the magical stillness of Lysefjorden, one of Norway’s most breathtaking fjords, not far from Sandnes.

Lysefjorden is about the silence before night’s mystery unfolds — before the forests begin to stir with creatures from old folklore: elves, trolls, huldras, and the unseen beings that have lived for centuries in stories and imagination. It is the quiet anticipation before nature changes character.

Today we also played through the entire suite from beginning to end — a powerful milestone for everyone involved. Tomorrow, we will rehearse the full concert intensively before opening the doors at 19:30 in Vågen Hall at Sandnes kulturskole.

We began the day with traditional Norwegian folk music. The students danced a chain dance while our Norwegian participants played the Hardanger fiddle — a unique and deeply rooted folk instrument.

The Hardanger fiddle is a Norwegian folk music instrument and a variant of the violin. In addition to the four main strings like a standard violin, it has four or five sympathetic resonance strings underneath, which create its rich, shimmering sound. The bridge is flatter than on a conventional violin, allowing for characteristic double stops and drones. Fun fact! The oldest preserved Hardanger fiddle was built in 1651.

From Greenlandic chants to Norwegian folklore — another day where music carried history, landscape, and identity into the room.

"Full Sail"

Last day. Last chance. The final shot before the grand premiere of NORDLYD.

It has been an extraordinary week. Friendships have blossomed and bonds have been formed across borders and backgrounds. We have been through waves together — moments of intensity, moments of doubt, moments of joy — and now we have found our sea legs. The ship is steady, the crew is smiling, and the journey has truly come alive.

For the concert itself, the hall was almost completely full, and we could not have hoped for a better performance. After a long day of intense preparations, we gently docked and presented both our musical “postcards” and the full suite NORDLYD. The focus, the energy, the presence — everything aligned.

Tomorrow we say goodbye. It will feel a little strange. Some of us may never see each other again — but we sincerely hope our paths will cross in the future. We have shared a week together. An experience together. So much music, singing, and dancing together. These are memories we will carry with us for the rest of our lives.

Early tomorrow, Denmark travels home before the rooster crows, while Iceland and Greenland will have one last chance to set foot on Norwegian soil for a little while longer.

So much love to everyone involved.

There are weeks that pass.
And there are weeks that stay.

NORDLYD became the kind that stayed.

For a brief moment in time, young people from different shores stood in the same room and chose to listen — not only to music, but to one another. They arrived with accents, habits, rhythms and references shaped by their own landscapes. They left carrying traces of someone else’s.

Something shifted during these days. What first felt unfamiliar slowly became natural. The courage it took to sing alone turned into the courage to blend. The uncertainty of new steps became shared movement. Individual sound became resonance.

Music revealed what words often struggle to explain: that identity does not weaken when it meets something different — it deepens. That tradition is not fragile — it grows when it is shared. That silence can hold as much meaning as the loudest crescendo.

There was bravery in this week. Not dramatic bravery, but the quiet kind. The bravery of trying. Of risking mistakes. Of standing beside someone you had just met and trusting that together you would find the pulse.

Art does something rare: it allows people to cross borders without leaving themselves behind.

And perhaps that was the true work of NORDLYD. Not only to rehearse notes or refine choreography, but to experience what happens when openness replaces distance. When curiosity replaces caution. When many stories are allowed to exist in the same space.

For a few days, we practiced more than music.
We practiced community.
We practiced listening.
We practiced becoming something larger than ourselves.

Then the moment passed, as moments do.

But the echo remains <3