Photo: Luke Fowler

The Scottish/Norwegian duo of Alasdair Roberts and Fredrik Rasten fuses their respective work with traditional music, folk song and experimental minimalism. Their first encounter was in the septet Alasdair Roberts og Völvur, which released the LP The Old Fabled River (2021, Drag City Records), featuring Roberts-originals and a blend of Scottish and Norwegian traditional songs. In duo, Roberts and Rasten have so far focussed on traditional Scottish narrative ballads, often with long durations, and where slowly evolving musical materials build up throughout the strophic verse-structure to emphasise the storytelling. The duo employs both field recordings and printed sources of traditional song as the basis of their interpretations, often evolving new original compositions and always resulting in a meeting point between time-honoured and contemporary forms of musical expression. Both musicians sing and play a variety of instruments, Roberts’ clear and unadorned vocal delivery blending with Rasten’s sensibilities of just intonation tuning and timbral qualities of sound.

Photo: Luke Fowler

The Scottish/Norwegian duo of Alasdair Roberts and Fredrik Rasten fuses their respective work with traditional music, folk song and experimental minimalism. Their first encounter was in the septet Alasdair Roberts og Völvur, which released the LP The Old Fabled River (2021, Drag City Records), featuring Roberts-originals and a blend of Scottish and Norwegian traditional songs. In duo, Roberts and Rasten have so far focussed on traditional Scottish narrative ballads, often with long durations, and where slowly evolving musical materials build up throughout the strophic verse-structure to emphasise the storytelling. The duo employs both field recordings and printed sources of traditional song as the basis of their interpretations, often evolving new original compositions and always resulting in a meeting point between time-honoured and contemporary forms of musical expression. Both musicians sing and play a variety of instruments, Roberts’ clear and unadorned vocal delivery blending with Rasten’s sensibilities of just intonation tuning and timbral qualities of sound.

festivalnear@gmail.com

@n:ear festival

festivalnear@gmail.com

@n:ear festival

n:ear is a space of closeness and intimacy, experimental music, avant-garde jazz, free improvisation and contemporary classical music. it is a space for attentive listening and sonic discovery in the captivating concert spaces of Banská Štiavnica. with its size and focus, it offers the opportunity to participate in this proximity and to establish unexpected encounters of both musical and non-musical kinds.

The fifth edition of the international festival of improvised and experimental music n:ear will bring artists from ten countries to various venues in Banská Štiavnica. n:ear suggests close and attentive listening, focused and perceptive hearing and promises an intense spectator and listener experience. In addition to concerts, the festival also presents lectures, site-specific performances, workshops, author readings and film screenings.

n:ear is a space of closeness and intimacy, experimental music, avant-garde jazz, free improvisation and contemporary classical music. it is a space for attentive listening and sonic discovery in the captivating concert spaces of Banská Štiavnica. with its size and focus, it offers the opportunity to participate in this proximity and to establish unexpected encounters of both musical and non-musical kinds.

The fifth edition of the international festival of improvised and experimental music n:ear will bring artists from ten countries to various venues in Banská Štiavnica. n:ear suggests close and attentive listening, focused and perceptive hearing and promises an intense spectator and listener experience. In addition to concerts, the festival also presents lectures, site-specific performances, workshops, author readings and film screenings.