Let‘s rethink folk music

Young people across Europe are gathering to learn and rethink folk music for the project RETHINK Folk Music. The project, funded by Aarhus 2017, aims to transform music school students into local music archaeologists. A truly European project, stretching its arms from Denmark out to Norway, Sweden, Latvia, Poland, Belgium and France, it is a collaboration between music schools and museums in each country.

Approximately 300-400 young people are given the unique chance to participate in different events and camps around Europe in 2015-2017. This will enable them to meet other young people across the continent and exchange ideas about culture and music.

In a rapidly changing world, young people’s interest in traditional music and our common roots has increased. The purpose of RETHINK Folk Music is to open the eyes of young people to Europe‘s musical heritage and provide them an understanding of similarities and differences in our common cultural heritage within European folk music.

Plenty of well-preserved European folk music material awaits the young minds who can dust it off and bring it back to life.

A melody for every city
A part of the project is the ‘Joker Melody,’ where every city chooses one melody to play and exchanges to another city, which plays their own version of the melody. Eventually, the two best melodies will be chosen and send to all of the cities participating before being interpreted and played in different ways.

The project is already in full swing. Melodies have been chosen, local concerts been held and the next priority is to send the melodies off to a neighbour city. A group of 50 Danish children will travel to Verdal in Norway for a mid-winter dance in February, where they will play and enjoy folk music with other young musicians. An international music camp is coming up in August 2016 and in 2017 the project will run on full capacity, with events and concerts around Denmark by these young talented musicians. This will help us in interpreting our common cultural heritage.

Jens-Ulrik Kleemeyer, project leader at RETHINK Folk Music, says it’s about having fun. He teaches the kids not to play by notes, but by ear. “They listen to each other and join in, it creates a certain flow,” Jens-Ulrik explains and adds: “it’s a lot of fun!”

What makes folk music interesting is that so many can participate and play, or dance to the music. “Folk music is a lot less egoistic than other music, say rock music, where there are maybe five band members on stage and others watch… It is more group oriented,“ says Jens-Ulrik.

The project ends in 2017 with a week-long festival at Himmelbjerget, one of Denmark’s few mountains, starting on the 27^th June and, as Jens-Ulrik explains, the children are going to have fun, and show others how fun folk music really is.

What happens after 2017?
“I am sure it will live on, in one form or another,“ says Jens-Ulrik. He elaborates: "It has already sparked an interest in local folk music with the kids, allowed them to get to know their local culture, and how music sounded in Denmark and Jutland 100 or 200 years ago.”

Most importantly, the kids are now creating an international network - that will live on.

See video (in Danish) about the VinterFolk event, held in 2015.