This is how Hilde thanked us for the county culture award

Hilde Bjørkum was proud and moved to receive the County Culture Award 2015. Here flanked by the head of the main committee for culture and industry, Karen Marie Hjelmeseter (left) and county mayor Jenny Følling (right). Photo: Matias Helgheim.

County Mayor!

Good county council members and other good people!

I am proud and moved to receive the County Culture Award 2015! 

The work on Førde The International Folk Music Festival has been a long journey – over more than 26 years. Last year, the festival celebrated its 25th anniversary.

I was actually going to become a veterinarian. But after a couple of years in Sunnfjord and the strong folk music community here, it was the music department at the teacher training college in Bergen instead. And after graduating, I was "headhunted" for exciting new tasks in my home county, where things were really turning around, with many new initiatives that have been incredibly important for the development of our county. The combination of the unstoppable cultural entrepreneur Lidvin Osland, an active folk music community and benevolent politicians did the trick! I was able to participate in the start-up of both the Sogn og Fjordane Folk Music Association, the County Musicians' Association, Mokurset and the Folk Music Archive in Sogn og Fjordane, which is now part of the County Archives.

Førdefestivalen saw the light of day in 1990. And the start-up was not without resistance and pain, it must be said! I was hired part-time as project manager for the festival in the fall of 1989. It was now 50% work and 200% effort. I think I have never before or since worked so much, at all hours of the day and night, as I did in that first year. After the first festival, I don't think I was completely refreshed until closer to Christmas...

We were so excited before the very first festival, would the musicians deliver as we hoped? Would they arrive on time? Would the volunteer system work as planned? And last but not least – would the AUDIENCE come? And it hit the Balkans just as the festival started – the Balkan War broke out. Then it was powerful to experience the very first festival notes from the stage in Førde July 5, 1990 performed by musicians from Albania, who did not even know if they would return home due to the outbreak of war.

We were very pleased with 6,000 visitors at the first festival, when we had a budget of 900 thousand. The second festival increased the audience to 9,000 and the third festival, when we doubled the number of visitors, a full 18,000 visitors! And even more wanted to come in! We were not prepared for such an influx, we moved concerts and the entire NRK rig from the Cinema Hall to the Sports Hall, we had new sound checks in the middle of the night, and finally staggered to bed exhausted and happy….

Since then, the number of visitors and the festival's reputation have grown steadily. We have built stone upon stone, both artistically and organizationally. From a 50% project manager position to today a cultural institution with 6 skilled jobs and a turnover of around 16 million.

When the festival was granted hub status in 2005, we received a new boost and were able to make even bolder plans, both artistically and organizationally. Over the past few years, the festival has produced over 40 new productions and commissioned work , and many of these have subsequently toured both domestically and internationally.  

Throughout these 26 years, 6400 artists from more than 130 countries all over the world have performed on the festival stages, which are no longer just in Førde – This year we had events in a total of 6 municipalities.

Perhaps not many people know that we have also built up one of the largest computer-based music libraries within our genre in Norway. And we have a number of concerts throughout the year, including Bornas Verdsdagar. We collaborate with many institutions at home and abroad and share expertise through courses, conferences and lectures at Firda high school and for students at Sogn og Fjordane University College, we offer internships for pupils and students.

Yes, good people, it is actually an achievement that we have achieved in our county, that right here, in Sogn og Fjordane, in a small Førde , is the largest folk and world music festival in the Nordic region. It is not a given that this is exactly where a festival is located that has been ranked among the 25 best festivals in the world of its kind for the past 6 years, that this is precisely where a festival is located that in 2014 was on the international newspaper The Guardian's list of the 10 best small town festivals in Europe, as the only Norwegian festival regardless of genre, and which in 2015 was named among the 7 best summer festivals in Europe by National Geographic, also here as the only Norwegian festival. 

This does not happen by itself. It is a lift that far-sighted and committed bureaucrats and politicians have facilitated. And which 350 volunteers, a fantastic staff and a multitude of helpers and partners, both public and private, contribute to implementing – every year.

Personally, I would also like to thank my family, who have been enrolled in the volunteer staff from day one, and who have had to live with a husband and a mother who must be said to have been somewhat absent, both physically and mentally at times, with their heads deep into the festival world.

The festival's values are to delight, move, surprise, and open up to new experiences and new insights and knowledge. These days there is a lot of talk about the economic ripple effects of various cultural initiatives. That is all well and good.

But the added value and ripple effects that the festival provides to each audience and to society should perhaps not be measured primarily in money, but in the value of increased insight and knowledge, attitudes, thoughts, experiences and reflections that make each of us a little richer, and a little wiser, values that are the foundation of a civilized, open and value-creating society.

And precisely in these times when each of us and our society are faced with new challenges and given new opportunities through encounters with many people from other cultures, Førdefestivalen more important and more relevant than ever. That is why I also believe that you, good politicians, will continue to invest in Førdefestivalen as the unique cultural lighthouse it is for our county and for Norway!

I feel privileged and grateful to have been able to guide the development of this important cultural institution throughout all these years, and proud of what we have achieved.

Thank you very much for the prize!