Well before he even has to think about hitting his thirties, Erlend Apneseth is already an extremely highly regarded musician. The music for his third...

Well before he even has to think about hitting his thirties, Erlend Apneseth is already an extremely highly regarded musician. The music for his third album, Nattsongar, was composed as a commissioned work for the Førde International Folk Music Festival in 2016, and together with his exceptionally skilled band, Apneseth combines musical elements from the four corners of the globe. “In this project I wanted to emphasise elements I feel all kinds of folk music share, from the gentle and intangible to the rhythmic and playful,” Apneseth says. The music on Nattsongar was commissioned by the Førde Festival in 2016, and was given its world premiere there. But the influence of the festival in the project goes far beyond the commission itself. Apneseth has a close relationship with the festival. In the cover notes he writes: “It was a great pleasure for me to write music for the Førde Festival in particular, as it has provided me with musical inspiration from all over the world since I was a child. In many ways this event must bear some of the responsibility for my having become a musician.” The work Nattsongar is Apneseth’s attempt to distil his own experiences and encounters from the Festival, and is “a sort of tribute to an event that accentuates what various traditions and cultures have in common rather than cultivating their differences.”