Glenn and Irrbloss

FESTIVAL CLUB SATURDAY!

Glenn

High-class and personal narrative concert by and with Finnish Erik Sjøholm. NBC saw the performance in Vaasa and was so delighted that we just had to take it to Skellefteå! How does that sound? Well, imagine Jeff Buckley and Paul Simon sitting around a campfire singing songs together on a late August night. Pure magic!

“On the same day that I was born, at almost the same time, my uncle Glenn decided to take his own life. My mom always says that I look like him and that he is my guardian angel. How come he took his last breath when I took my first? What is my connection to him?”

In this performance, Nordic singer/songwriter and storyteller Erik Sjøholm dives deep into his own mythology and explores the stories that have shaped his life. Alone on stage with his acoustic guitar and his angelic voice, he invites the audience to an intimate and raw live experiencewhere songs and stories seamlessly take us to a place where we can discover new things about ourselves and perhaps also understand why we do the things we do.

He takes his inspiration from ancient myths, critical 20th century writers and artists such as Regina Spector and Bob Dylan. The result is a personal and poetic storytelling concert that touches us deeply.

Photo: Janina Svahn (Svahn Photography)

Played in English.

Irrbloss

For three years, Maja Heurling and Ola Sandström worked to set the poetry of American immigrant Signe Aurell to music. And the story about Signe is completely different from the one about Karl-Oskar and Kristina.

In 1913, Signe Aurell left Sweden on her own to seek fortune in the United States. She came to work as a laundress and political writer, but she also became a civil rights activist and was a contemporary with the protest singer Joe Hill who was convicted of murder in 1915.

Signe wrote poetry and published her metrically perfect and linguistically glowing collection of poems "Irrbloss" in Swedish in 1919. Her hitherto unknown poems deal with homesickness and the struggle for a brighter future. 100 years later, they have now received a musical setting where folk music meets wisdom and where the compositions lift every meaningful word.

It is surprising that Signe Aurell has not received more attention in Sweden, but now is the time. And the soundtracks are absolutely lovely. It is infinitely beautiful and at the same time both brittle and strong. Do not miss!

Performance in Swedish.