Flensburger Tageblatt | 11 April 2011 | by Joachim Pohl and Antje Walther

For a full four and a half hours the three bands in the main concert filled the hall with Nordic melancholy, eastern commitment and technical sophistication. Exprompt from Petroworsk in Karelia showed themselves to be masters of synchronicity. Olga Kleshchenko (domra), Alexej Kleshchenko (balalaika), Michail Totskij (bajan) and Ewgenij Tarasenko (bass balalaika) played a very tight and professional programme, combining romances and romanticism, classical and new pieces, furiously and precisely.

Well worth seeing again is Gabriel Fliflet: embedded in Ǻresong, the lanky Norwegian is at home with all kinds of keys. “We Norwegians cannot be happy for too long – it’s too painful”, he says, making fun of his virtuoso playing. Benedicte Maurseth singing is forthright (and also plays the Hardanger fiddle), while Per Jørgensen’s is beautifully coarse, and wonderful with muted trumpet. Stein Urheim plays a soft sound, and you can tell that Kristoffer Vogt on double bass is learning to be refreshingly cheeky.

Maria Kalaniemi, the frequently praised Grande Dame of the accordion, closed the concert with her band just as worthily: softly, wisely, melancholically and beautifully.

Flensburger Tageblatt | 12 April 2011 | by Joachim Pohl and Niko Wasmund

... Kraja means "the place where you feel at home", and Flensburg’s packed out Marienkirche was such a place for the final “Vocal Culture Capitals” concert on Sunday evening. The four impressive young Swedish women sang songs that ranged from sunny to tender – some of which were subtly accompanied by Norwegian saxophonist Karl Seglem. The preceding performance by the "Sønderjysk Pigekor" was somewhat more experimental; as well as for the works by Carl Nielsen und Franz Liszt, the choir received much enthusiastic applause and calls of “bravo” for their rendition of a modern and adventurous composition that included all kinds of elemental sounds, whisperings, sighs, and calls. The Estonian "TV Girls Choir" showed that they knew how to combine the powerful vocals of Eastern European songs with breath taking choreography. ...

Flensborg Avis | 12 April 2011 | by Hans-Christian Davidsen

This year the festival organisers decided to reduce the number of concerts, simply because staff and resources were insufficient for a larger programme. But the result was more visitors than last year.

Flensborg Avis | 12 April 2011 | by Hans Christian Davidsen

“You probably only experience something like this once in a lifetime,” said Lisa Lestander of the Swedish quartet “Kraja”. It was full to bursting in the Marienkirche, as always when folkBALTICA stages its final concert. People are not stupid. They know they can expect something special, and folkBALTICA always manages to bring the festival’s best artists together on one bill.

The absolute highlight of the concert was the Estonian TV Girls Choir, with top class artistry seldom before heard in the Marienkirche. The voices of the singers dressed in their traditional costume developed splendidly under the vaulted ceiling of the church, giving the audience goose bumps and earning massive applause in return. They sang traditional Estonian songs and works by contemporary Estonian composers from various positions about the church. A unique experience.

All the artists came onto the stage for the grand finale, singing solo and then together. Heavenly sounds!

Kieler Nachrichten | 8 April 2011 | by Manuel Weber

Despite her 28 years Maurseth is already held to be a master of the venerable Hardanger fiddle. 17^th century Christians considered the instrument to be "devil’s work", resulting in the instrument being banned in churches until well into the 20^th century. Thanks God that one of these fiddles found its way into Maurseth’s hands. She approaches both melody and instrument with sensitivity, empathy, virtuosity, strength, accuracy and focus, constantly retuning the fiddle without jeopardising the concentrated and emotional atmosphere. Benedicte Maurseth is particularly strong in the contemplative, etheric, associative parts of the songs, which ideally suit her wonderful velvety alto voice.

The Danish group Fiolministeriet was far jollier and lighter. But despite all the fun and laughs, their music was anything but shallow, superficial folk music. The technical accuracy breaks out into in a vibrantly well-tempered, refreshing and unaffected fun. The “fiddle ministry” succeeds in creating a bridge between Swedish dance music, traditional Finnish and American melodies and their own compositions und.   

Flensburger Tageblatt | 11 April 2011 | by Antje Walther

It doesn’t get more colourful than the North German Ballad Band: the ancient, bloodthirsty Störtebeker ballads of 1582 and Hänschenklein, that this blend of very youthful violinists and old hands translated into jolly folk music, were interspersed with Caribbean rhythms, a driftwood hymn with nymphs and all kinds of antics at this matinée in the maritime museum.

Der Schleibote | 11 April 2011 |

There were worried phone calls the day before. "What? You want to do it outside?", asked a ticket-holder. But as museum director Jochen Clausen said in his welcoming speech, the weather is always good when folkBALTICA comes to the Angel rural life museum in Unewatt. ... And the concert proved to be an all-round success: good weather, great music and 170 satisfied visitors.

Flensburger Tageblatt | 11 April 2011 | by Niko Wasmund

Unusual sounds at an unusual location: Once again, the midnight concert on Museum Hill offered food for fans who like a bit of experimentation. Two Norwegians and two Germans created landscapes of "Percussion Magic " in the stairwell – whereby they always included the fascinated audience in their performance. Clapping, finger snapping, and yelling – what a job. ...

Flensburger Tageblatt | 11 April 2011 | by Niko Wasmund

The ruler sits on the left hand edge of the stage. Clad in glittering yellow the sits behind the electric piano – and has everything under control with looks and nods. No wonder - Sakari Kukko and "Piirpauke" will soon have been performing for four decades, and he is considered to be one of the co-founders of world music. These five sympathetic Finns are obviously happiest at the place where folk, jazz and ethno influences meet, and their enthusiasm quickly transferred to their large audience. ...

Flensburger Tageblatt | 11 April 2011 | by Joachim Pohl and Antje Walther

At the start to the long festival weekend, the Flensburg audience let itself be enchanted by things Scandinavian. With just a fiddle, a nyckelharpa and three wonderful voices, the four women from "Blink" filled the full Johannis Kirche with sound. ... Here and there, "Blink" poured a barrel of melancholy over the congregation, but also showed they can do lively dance music; and with their tango piece "Kylatie" they may have created the folkBALTICA anthem for 2011. A second encore next time, please!

Flensborg Avis | 11 April 2011 | by Hans Christian Davidsen

The Johanniskirche was full. This was no church service; the people had come to listen. But without wanting to be blasphemous: what we got to hear was divine.

folkBALTICA was able to place five flags on the page of the programme where these four women were listed, because singer Jullie Hjettland, who also plays Autoharp, is half-Norwegian, half-Danish. Not many people know that she was voted best folk singer at the 2009 Danish Music Awards. But let’s not go overboard – here is a natural talent, who can achieve everything with her shaman-like voice. Blink set the bar very, very high. Voices and instruments moved in musical fringe areas. The girls’ four very individual, and very personal forms of expression flowed into a fascinating performance with four different roles.

The only complaint about this concert was that even after 75 minutes, it was still too short.

Flensburger Tageblatt | 09 April 2011 | by Joachim Pohl

... The audience, half German and half Danish, experienced a moving evening with Maria Kalaniemi, the Finnish-Swedish Grande Dame of virtuoso accordion playing. Accompanied by Olli Varis (guitar) and Eero Grundström (mouth organ, harmonium), in her first set she spread out a soft carpet of meditative sounds full of dark melancholy. It was only shortly before the break Pause that she roused the audience with a hot folk dance, in which one learned that the harmonium can also be a rhythm instrument – at least when played by Eero Grundström. ... 

Flensburger Tageblatt | 09 April 2011 | by Antje Walther

... Fliflet sings a maritime song after all – and a love song with the gentleness of a van Veen and maybe also with his child-friendly comedy. The ill drummer was replaced by Stein Urheim, whose pleasant guitar sound carried Fliflets complex playfulness. ... His folk-shoes after one encore are so powerful and sympathetic, that not even six musicians could attempt to fill them. ... 

Flensborg Avis | 9 April 2011 | by Hans Christian Davidsen

The Oldemorstoft Agricultural Museum provided the perfect surroundings for these old and particularly good Danish folk music. The concert by Kristian Bugge, Mette Katrine Jensen, Morten Alfred Høirup, Thomas Heedegard and Bjarke Kolerus took us on a journey to the edges of Denmark and tempts us to use the hackneyed word “superlative”. Because, here in remote regions we find folk musical pearly: in Thy, Fanø, Himmerland, Rebild, Læsø and the like. You don’t have to look enviously towards Ireland or Scotland, what we have here is just as good. The group plays as a duo, trio, quartet and quintet, its own songs, and some that have been in the drawer since grandpa was a lad.

Eckernförder Zeitung (shz) | 09 April 2011 | by Sylvia Meisner-Zimmermann

... Hal & Nikolaj illustrated their diversity and unbridled joy of playing with a potpourri of four pieces. First Nikolaj played Finnish compositions by Sibelius on the accordion - with breakneck speed. This was followed by an Irish piece - and then Hal joined in – with playing that was Scottish, gloomy, aggressive and thrilling. After a short silence, the applause was frenetic.

Flensborg Avis | 11 April 2011 | by Hans Christian Davidsen

No-one knows how often pianist (and much more!) Nikolaj Busk has been a winner at the Danish Music Awards – he is active at many different musical levels, i.e. also with Trio Mio, and is one of the very best and most talented musicians in the Danish folk scene. Hal Parfitt-Murray is a Scot, plays the fiddle, can sing and tap-dance, and keeps the audience entertained in a very charming, and very British, manner. He grew up in Scotland and Australia, and took a degree in folk music at the Carl Nielsen Akademie in Odense.

So much for introducing the musicians, describing the music is far harder. It is definitely based on Celtic and Danish folk music, but somewhere in-between there are plenty of detours to other musical worlds, and creative nuances, so that it would be easier to describe the music as sympathetic “mischief”, with surprising arrangements and the greatest degree of virtuosity from two multi-instrumentalists. And then the auditorium really did turn into a child’s room, when on top of glockenspiel and harmonium, Nikolaj Busk started to play the toy piano as well. The duo called their parody-like, yet fascinating, piece “Music from the edge of the world”.

Eckernförder Zeitung | 09 April | by Markus Feuerstack

... But regardless of which language Fliflet sang ("I can sing in Finnish without understanding what it’s about”), he creates a magical atmosphere and enchanted the audience, who would clearly have liked to join in dancing to the songs. Seldom have we seen such a fascinated and enthusiastic audience at a concert in the Siegfried Yard!

Schleswig-Holsteinische Landeszeitung | 08 April 2011 | by Reinhard Frank

... Skilfully and absolutely authentic, Benedicte Maurseth and her art embodied the music of earlier days. ... She spoke of dreamy melodies, trance and self-hypnosis – and in truth: as if enchanted, she transported one into another world, far away from hectic life and time pressure. Yet lively and full of strength, like in folk dances.

This was followed by the three young ladies from the "Ministry of Violins", who showed how lively, appealing and thrilling the music of a string trio can be. ... They also played music that was immediately pleasing, where one felt good, where one “belonged".

Nordschleswiger | 08 April 2011 |

... The audience in the packed Emil Nolde Saal enjoyed an extraordinary concert, which left nothing to be desired. In the electric field between Irish and North German folk songs, with ballads, reels, lyrical acapella pieces and waltzes, played on traditional folk instruments such as tin whistle, concertina, mandolin, bouzouki, bodhran, but also on accordion, soprano saxophone, trombone and tuba, they created a fantastic and thrilling musical diversity, seasoned with commentaries that were sometimes humorous, sometimes caustic. ... 

Flensburger Tageblatt | 03 March 2011 | by Joachim Pohl

In the times of YouTube and MySpace it is not a problem to find and listen to the music of very esoteric bands and singers. But the Folk-Baltica festival crew had found a very charming way of giving visitors to the 7^th festival an appetite for the music, which also provided information the places the musicians come.
More so than in previous years, this year’s festival really called for an interactive sound map. This is because, unlike the festivals between 2005 and 2010, this year there was no focus on one particular country, just one theme: culture capitals. Most of the musicians came from cultural capitals around the Baltic Sea, or from those who are candidates (Sønderborg), like Umeå ...

Eckernförder Zeitung | 25 February 2011 | by Arne Peters

Well-tempered cooking pots and a video organ with images of people making sounds – where else would you find such unusual instruments than at the "Folk Baltica" festival. Eckernförde and Hüttener Krug are also venues for the seventh festival
Every year at the "Folk Baltica" festival musicians from countries around the Baltic Sea give concerts in the German-Danish border region. This time, 148 musicians from Estonia, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Russia and Germany took part in the five-day festival, where they presented their traditional music cultures in modern forms between folk, jazz, classic and world music. They gave a total of 42 concerts on over 30 stages at 19 venues in the region between Sønderborg and Husum, Flensburg and Salzau. " Folk Baltica is not just transnational, but also trans-genre", says artistic director Jens-Peter Müller. Besides the film special in the “Haus”, the festival also included exhibitions, workshops and lectures ...

Ticket sales begin
SHZ | 11 February 2011 | by Antje Walther

Women and culture capitals set the tone at the 7th folkBaltica. The organisers have invited over 148 artists from ten nations, more than ever before.
More than 100 women, a number boosted by the world’s best two girls choirs, are opening the festival on April 8^th. The voices of the Estonian TV Girls Choir and the Sønderjysk Pigekor will be filling the Alsion in with the title "Vocal Capitals of Culture". The opening concert in Flensburg will be given by "Blink" in the St. Johannis Kirche on 8^th April, almost next door to the festival office in Süderfischerstrasse. The four folk musicians from five countries - singer Jullie Hjetland has Norwegian and Danish roots – will then be sending the people off to the folk party in Flensburg’s Kühlhaus ...

Flensburger Tageblatt | 09 November 2010 | by Antje Walther

Not "if", but "when" Sønderborg is the capital of culture in seven years time, the borders that fall will be mental as well as geographical. In this manner, Folk-Baltica, which culturally unites the countries around the Baltic Sea, will become gently embedded, says Else Christensen Redzepovic. The organisers of the folk festival already refer to her as "Mrs Culture Capital". The Dane has been running the office at the Alsion since August 2009, which advertises and acts on behalf of the city and the border region with passion ...

7th folkBALTICA from 6-10 April 2011
Focus on: European Capitals of Culture in the Baltic Region

Festival of 100 women with record number of participants
Advance sales begin on 11 February 2011

The seventh folkBALTICA festival will run from 6 to 10 April 2011. At the 42 events in Flensburg, Sønderborg and the German-Danish region of Sønderjylland-Schleswig, you can experience the highlights of traditional music cultures from the countries around the Baltic Sea in modern manifestations of folk, jazz, classic and world music ...

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