Traditional Music from Norway

Lively Norwegian traditional songs and instrumentals including waltzes, polkas, circle dances. Played on diatonic and piano-accordions and fiddles.

Folklore Group Gjesdalringen

Gjesdalringen is a folklore group from the small municipality of Gjesdal which is in the south-western part of Norway.

Every year since its formation in 1976, the group has organised exchange visits with other folklore groups from different European countries. Through this annual exchange programme and their participation in folk festivals on all their visits Gjesdalringen have become the best-known and most widely travelled Norwegian folklore group in Europe.

Gjesdalringen have a repertoire of about fifty Norwegian folk dances plus some Swedish and other Scandinavian dances. The musicians accompany most of the dances with violins, diatonic and piano accordions and guitar. Some of the dances are only accompanied by the dancers singing. Most of the Norwegian folk dances are based on "ring dances" with couples dancing in ring formation.

In July 2005 Gjesdalringen took part in the 24th annual international Festival Mondial des Cultures de Drummondville, in Drummondville, near Montreal, Canada, where they met and shared their culture and dances with nineteen other groups from as far afield as Mexico, Haïti, Cyprus, Nova Scotia and Bulgaria. This album was recorded at that festival in Drummondville, in collaboration with the Festival Mondial.