Nordic Ballads. Katrina Petersen (Faroe Islands/Denmark), Villu Veski (Estonia)
A concert series “Art Sounds” combining art and music at the Niguliste Museum. Curated in collaboration with the Estonian saxophonist and composer Villu Veski, the music events will feature art and music, including musicians and curators known both in Estonia and abroad. The series is based on the treasures of medieval art and the exhibition programme of the Niguliste Museum. At these events, the worlds created by the exhibitions will intertwine with diverse soundscapes. The concerts will be preceded by short tours led by art historians.
The opening concert of the “Art Sounds” series is “Nordic Ballads”, which is also the closing chord of the exhibition Unicorn in the Magical Forest. Ballads inspired by ancient Nordic myths and sagas will be performed by Katrina Petersen, a singer and composer with Faroese and Danish roots, who has lived, studied and worked in almost all of the Scandinavian countries. The ballads will be performed in Swedish, Faroese, Danish, Norwegian and Icelandic. Katrina will be accompanied by the Danish guitarist Andreas Christiansen Ugorskij and Estonian musicians who have collaborated closely with renowned Nordic artists: the saxophonist and composer Villu Veski and the composer and keyboardist Raun Juurikas.
The concert will be preceded by a short tour of the exhibition Unicorn in the Magical Forest by the art historian Merike Kurisoo.
The exhibition Unicorn in the Magical Forest, organised in collaboration with the National Historical Museums of Sweden and the Royal Armoury of Sweden, will be open until 6 April. The exhibition invites you to discover the meaning of the fairy-tale unicorn throughout history and to encounter unicorns in objects and works of art from the 16th to 21st centuries. Works from Estonian collections present to us the mysterious presence of the unicorn here.
The concert invites the audience to the Nordic fairy-tale lands. The listener, while enjoying the beauty of the light from the historical chandeliers of Niguliste, will be transported to the wonderland of unicorns by a modern lighting solution installed just for that evening. Niguliste will become a magical forest of dreams and nightmares, where ancient Nordic songs full of power will make art resonate through mystical rays of light.
The concert series is connected to the exhibition programme of the Niguliste Museum. The second event in the series is a concert dedicated to the 500th anniversary of the Estonian book on 22 August 2025. Latvians will also celebrate the 500th anniversary of the book in their native language this year and therefore the concert is dedicated to Estonian and Latvian music. The concerts in the final months of the year are connected to the 500th anniversary of the death of Michel Sittow and the upcoming Christmas season.
“Nordic Ballads”, the opening concert of the new concert series “Art Sounds”, brings together ancient Nordic music and the visual world of mythical unicorns.
The Danish/Faroese Katrina Petersen is a singer, pianist, songwriter, teacher and choir conductor.
Katrina was raised in Copenhagen by a Faroese mother and Danish father, and has strong family ties to the Faroe Islands, both linguistically and culturally. She started her musical career as a young girl in the prestigious Danish Radio Girls’ Choir. In 1998-2000 she moved to Sweden to study jazz at the Fridhems Folkhögskola, and through this she was also introduced to Swedish folk music.
In 2000 she was accepted as a singer at the Rhythmic Music Academy in Copenhagen, and during her studies she became deeply interested in folk songs from Bulgaria, and helped start the GLAS Vocal Ensemble (Vokalselskabet GLAS in Danish), with a focus on folk songs, especially from Bulgaria. In the Faroe Islands, Katrina helped start the Faroese vocal ensemble KATA.
Katrina is a versatile singer who moves between jazz, pop and folk songs, especially from the Balkans and the Nordic countries. She accompanies herself on piano or guitar.
In 2009, Katrina released the solo album “Colourless Day”, with 10 of her own songs in the singer-songwriter genre. The album was produced by Mikael Blak and mixed by Jónas Bloch. With “The GLAS Vocal Ensemble”, Katrina has released four CDs and seven singles and has collaborated with, among others, Kira Skov, Afenginn, Line Tjørnhøj, Sunleif Rasmussen, KOTTOS, John Sund, Peter Danstrup, Jeanett Albeck, Frans Bak and Ragnhei∂ur Gröndal
www.katrinasounds.com
www.vokalselskabetglas.dk
Andreas Ugorskij is a guitarist, songwriter and composer working in klezmer, gypsy jazz and folk music. He is a guitarist in the award-winning klezmer band Klezmofobia, as well as in Papa Kotji and Alaska Blonde, and a guitarist and vocalist in Tikke Takke.
In 2024 Andreas released his solo album “Tidslommer”, his debut as a singer/songwriter. This is an album with beautiful ballads and lyrics reflecting life and relationships.
Raun Juurikas has studied classical and jazz piano and graduated from the Composition Department of the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre. He has a broad profile as a musician, arranger and composer, and he is known for creating fascinating electronic soundscapes. For several years he has been collaborating with the internationally acclaimed Swiss percussionist Brian Quinn in their duo BRAUN. He has also performed with a number of other Estonian artists. Raun Juurikas has been working with Villu Veski for many years, and together they have given concerts in Estonia and on prestigious stages in Paris, Brussels and London.
Villu Veski is one of the best-known Estonian jazz musicians both in Estonia and internationally, and has given concerts in prestigious concert halls: Tokyo Opera City, the Berliner Philharmonie, London Queen Elizabeth Hall and others.
He has participated in important international festivals: the Rochester Jazz Festival in New York, Pori Jazz Festival in Finland, Natt Jazz in Norway, the Brussels Jazz Marathon in Belgium, World Saxophone Congress in Montreal and the British Saxophone Congress at the Royal College of Music in London.
Villu’s cooperation partners are musicians from the Faroe Islands, Hawaii, Argentina, Spain, India and elsewhere. Eivør Pálsdóttir (Faroe Islands), Jan Gunnar Hoff (Norway), Ola Onabule (England), Bobo Stenson (Sweden) Barbara Dennerlein (Germany), Lee Oskar (USA), the Espen Berg Trio (Norway) et al. have been Villu’s cooperation partners on stage and in the studio.
He is also a member of Arctic Ensemble Yggdrasil, founded by the Faroese composer Kristian Blak. Villu has performed in the Faroe Islands since the 1990s. He has performed on several Yggdrasil recordings and has participated in numerous tours in the USA, Europe, the Nordic countries and Siberia.
Villu Veski’s best-known ensemble is “NordicSounds”, created together with Tiit Kalluste. They have given hundreds of concerts in 35 countries and have recorded four albums.
linktr.ee/villuveski
soundcloud.com/villuveski/fly-north-jan-gunnar-hoff-villu-veski
Produktsioon: KV Stuudio
Concert series “Art Sounds” at the Niguliste Museum
Concert series curator: Villu Veski
Production: KV Stuudio
Coordinator: Kadi Raudalainen
Graphic identity: Asko Künnap
Team: Tarmo Saaret, Annika Teras, Kersti Tiik and Merike Kurisoo
