Join in a musical journey through Norwegian American emigration history! Fiddlers Beth Hoven Rotto and Laura Ellestad draw you into the sounds and stories of Norwegian emigrants who settled in the US Upper Midwest - including such states as Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. Folk guitarist Magnus Wiik accompanies the fiddlers. The local fiddle ensemble Naustedalen Spelemannslag concludes the concert and opens the dance and jam to follow.
Program in Sersjanløa barn:
6:00-7:30 p.m.: Concert with Laura Ellestad, Beth Hoven Rotto, Magnus Wiik and Naustedalen Spelemannslag
7:30-9:00 p.m.: Open dancefloor and jamming - bring your dancing shoes or an instrument!
Ticket prices:
Adult: 230kr
Seniors and students: 200kr
Årskort (annual museum pass): 100kr (present valid pass at the door)
Children under 18: Free (please order a free ticket)
The visitor center opens at 5:00 p.m. Enjoy a pre-concert showing of the exhibit Fiddlers and Funny Ladies: entertainment in Norwegian America.
Are you a fiddler interested in learning to play some Norwegian American tunes? Join in the course earlier in the day!
Beth Hoven Rotto has played in the folk music group Foot-Notes in Decorah, Iowa for over 30 years. She is known as a popular performer at local dances such as Nordic Fest and the Highlandville Schoolhouse Dances, and has also graced the national stage at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts i Washington, D.C. Beth was the student of the highly-regarded Norwegian American fiddler Bill Sherburne, and she has gone on to teach apprentices and students herself. Beth's work has been supported by the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the American Scandinavian Foundation. In 2024, she helped to develop the exhibit Hand Me Down the Fiddle: Norwegian Fiddlers, Fiddles and Fiddle Tunes at Vesterheim Museum in Decorah.
Laura Ellestad is a award-winning Canadian/Norwegian Hardanger fiddle player with roots in Valdres. In 2014, she repleased her first solo album Valdresspel i Amerika, which was nominated for the Norwegian folk music awards Spellemannprisen and Folkelarmprisen. The album includes tunes from five Valdres fiddlers who emigrated to the US in the late 1800s. Her doctoral studies focused on the Norwegian American folk music scene in the Midwest in the first half of the 1900s. She has been a professor at the Institute for Traditional Art and Folk Music at the University of South Eastern Norway's campus at Rauland since 2018.
