Quest Complete

    

Fast forward to September 11th, 2021 and I scooter along the canal through a foggy Turku, Finland. I can't fathom today is the day I get my new harpa, that day I've been dreaming of for over two years since I fell in love with the nyckleharpa at NFF 2019. Not only do I get to pick up my brand new instrument, I get to meet its builder, Bosse Nilsson! 

Bo generously met me and a Fulbright friend in Turku, Finland as a halfway point between Helsinki, where I am researching Nordic Music and String Pedagogy at the Sibelius Academy for my Fulbright grant, and Bo's residence north of Stockholm, Sweden. He and a friend took a long ferry just to hand deliver my new instrument to me, and I am so thankful! He gave me a tutorial on how to take the key box apart to do repair work if a key sticks (this happens a lot in New York humidity especially!), and I was thrilled to do a demonstration and play the harpa for him. He lit up with joy when I warmed up on Spelmansglädje, an Erik Sahlström composition; a tune for nyckelharpa written by the inventor of the modern Swedish nyckelharpa and thus a major figure in the history of the nyckelharpa, and a well known tune! And what a sound that harpa made! It was like playing a work of art, or playing in a concert hall with excellent acoustics all of a sudden, and I could create subtle dynamics and play with sensitivity and nuance. It was like an instrument being born, with its whole life ahead, awakening. 

We greatly enjoyed our time together sharing our love of the nyckelharpa, and Bo helped me put my new nyckelharpa case's straps on when it was time to go. He said he was so thrilled his instrument was going to someone who would play it, and play it well, and not hang on a wall as wall decoration! 

~



Me and Bosse Nilsson in Turku, Finland

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