Annual meeting for Nordic and Baltic region folk musicians in Viljandi

From April 19 – 24, Viljandi will host this year’s annual Nordtrad meeting. Nordtrad is a network of academies and universities in the Nordic and Baltic countries that offer education in folk music. Nearly 150 folk musicians and teachers from countries like Estonia, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Latvia and Lithuania will take part of various concerts, seminars, mixed ensemble workshops and of course spontaneous playing and dancing. 

During six days of meetings teachers from different higher education institutions as well as renowned Estonian folk musicians will lead different workshops. The main focus will be on mixed ensemble workshops and throughout the meeting there will be four public concerts at the Estonian Traditional Music Center:

Wednesday, April 20 at 8pm
Concert of participating schools
Students from all participating higher education institution will perform

Thursday, April 21 at 8pm
Maarja Nuut and Trad.Attack!
Two of Estonia’s most beloved folk artists will take the stage

Friday, April 22 at 8pm
Dance Evening: NORDTRAD Special
A rare opportunity to dance the night away along the tunes created by lectures from participating countries

Saturday, April 23 at 8pm
Final Concert
This is a concert where you can see the results of intense practicing sessions and all the quality time spent together throughout the six days in mixed ensemble groups. A must see for everybody!

Additional infortmation can be found from their web page.

Every year since 1996 the Folk Music Network has organized an annual meeting. The meeting takes place in different institutions and each year it has a theme of the host country and its folk music. 2016 will be the third time Viljandi has hosted this meeting.  More information about the network can be found here. 

The official cooperation partner of Nordtrad 2016 is Estonian Traditional Music Center, the city of Viljandi and Cultural Endowment of Estonia are supporters and sponsors.