Folk music

At MHI, folk music mainly refers to Swedish and Nordic folk music, but we also look to the rest of the world and sample music from other countries and cultures. We examine the folk music tradition of Värmland in depth. Folk music is one of the three generic areas you can select in the Music Teacher Programme, Music (60 ECTS credits) and Music College. The genre is also represented in different standalone courses.

Ingesund School of Music is frequently visited by active folk musicians from different parts of the world, who hold workshops with our students and participate in concerts. These meetings are an extra source of inspiration and give valuable opportunities for development and knowledge exchange.

Ensemble

All folk music students from our different courses and programmes meet and play together in the folk music ensemble. Leaders and students both contribute songs and the ensemble plays in different constellations based on instrumentation and music choices. Leaders and students arrange music both individually and together for duos, trios, quartets and the large ensemble. Different main themes are in focus, such as lyrics or dance, own compositions, and so on.

Prospective music teachers also take part in the NordTrad conference each year, which draws participants from all schools of music in the Nordic region.

Main instrument

In addition to ensemble work, folk music students also receive individual lessons on their main instruments. The number of hours per semester depends a bit on the course/programme followed. Students taking the Music (60 ECTS credits) programme take for instance around 10 hours of lessons on their main instruments, while first-year students on the Music Teacher Programme take around 9 hours’ lessons on their main instrument per semester. Students on the Music Teacher Programme take main instrument lessons each of the 10 semesters of the programme.

Study abroad

During the third year of the Music Teacher Programme, students have the opportunity to study abroad, particularly in the Nordic countries and the rest of Europe. Some existing partnerships in the area of folk music include Campus Rauland, University of South-Eastern Norway and the Irish World Academy in Limerick, Ireland. We also receive exchange students who want to hone their skills with our teachers and be part of the creative artistic environment offered by Ingesund School of Music.

 Folk music teachers

• Mats Berglund, violin
• Ann-Sofi Nilsson, voice
• Mattias Perez, guitar and ensemble