One of the major annu­al events in Longyearbyen’s cul­tu­ral calen­dar is the “Arc­tic Cham­ber Music Fes­ti­val”, which this year is dedi­ca­ted to the art of sto­rytel­ling as well as music.

This year’s mot­to of the ‘Arc­tic Cham­ber Music Fes­ti­val’: Sto­rytel­lers.

As with the Dark Sea­sons Blues Fes­ti­val and Polar Jazz, the­re is ple­nty on offer for the audi­ence. For exam­p­le, at noon on Satur­day at the Sval­bard Muse­um, the sto­ry of Wil­lem Barent­sz’ expe­di­ti­on, who famously dis­co­ver­ed Spits­ber­gen in 1596, was told in music …

Tor­un Tor­bo with the ‘Barent­sz flu­te’ and Sol­mund Nysta­bakk on the lute
at the Sval­bard Muse­um.

… with con­tem­po­ra­ry music play­ed on a flu­te that is an exact copy of the flu­te found in the remains of Barent­sz’ win­ter camp on Nova­ya Zem­lya, accom­pa­nied by a lute. The ori­gi­nal flu­te can be seen in the Rijks­mu­se­um in Ams­ter­dam.

Tor­un Tor­bo with the ‘Barent­sz flu­te’:
‘Tonen i isen’, the Barent­sz sto­ry told musi­cal­ly.

Pro­ba­b­ly the high­light of this year’s cham­ber music fes­ti­val in Lon­gye­ar­by­en was the Satur­day evening con­cert. Not only becau­se the high­lights are pre­sen­ted at this prime time, but also becau­se the venue had to be moved at short noti­ce for tech­ni­cal reasons – to the day faci­li­ties of Mine 7! The venue its­elf thus beca­me an event of exclu­si­ve value, as this last Nor­we­gi­an coal mine still in ope­ra­ti­on is not nor­mal­ly open to the public.

Mine 7: sud­den­ly the venue for the Arc­tic Cham­ber Music Fes­ti­val.

In pro­se and music, the­re was the sto­ry of one of the lone­liest theat­re and bal­let stages in the world, in California’s Death Val­ley:

Mis­sy Mar­zo­li from New York intro­du­ces Mar­ta Becket and her (Marta’s) lonely theat­re
in Death Val­ley Junc­tion …

… musi­cal­ly rea­li­sed by the NOVO Quar­tet from Den­mark.

This was fol­lo­wed by the life and work of the Vene­ti­an com­po­ser Bar­ba­ra Stroz­zi, impres­si­ve­ly per­for­med with sopra­no and lute.

Berit Nor­bak­ken (sopra­no) and Sol­mund Nysta­bakk (lute).
The some­what unhap­py loo­king lady abo­ve is Bar­ba­ra Stroz­zi (appro­xi­m­ate­ly 1619-1677)

And of cour­se that wasn’t all that was on offer at the Arc­tic Cham­ber Music Fes­ti­val. The­re was so much more, from ‘Peter und der Wolf’ to the ‘Four Sea­sons’.

Tilia-Ensem­ble in Lon­gye­ar­by­en and Trom­sø

If you are spon­ta­neous or hap­pen to be in the area any­way, you can enjoy ano­ther musi­cal high­light next week, when the Tilia Ensem­ble from Dres­den per­forms a pro­gram­me of music from the far north in the Sval­bard Church on Tues­day (25 Febru­ary) and the famous Tromsda­len Cathe­dral in Trom­sø on Fri­day.

Tilia Ensem­ble: 25th Feb in Lon­gye­ar­by­en, 28th Feb in Trom­sø.

New pages

Things are pro­gres­sing here too. One of the most beau­tiful places on Spits­ber­gen final­ly got the page it deser­ves, name­ly Kapp Lin­né. Be sure to check it out! And the page about Gjert­se­nod­den in St. Jons­fjord is not new, but it has been impro­ved. Others too, but that’s enough for now.

And what else?

As I wri­te this (on Sun­day, 23rd Febru­ary), a few kilo­me­t­res away, on the north side of Advent­fjord, a polar bear is wal­king around, and Sysselmester’s heli­c­op­ter is alre­a­dy in the air to cha­se it away from town. It is the first polar bear to come clo­se to Lon­gye­ar­by­en this year, as far as I have heard.

Let the­re be light! Today, 16 Febru­ary, the peo­p­le in and around Lon­gye­ar­by­en were able to enjoy the first sun­ri­se sin­ce 25 Octo­ber, at least in theo­ry. In bet­ween was the polar night, which has now come to an end.

Short­ly after noon, howe­ver, the sun bare­ly mana­ged to reach 0.16 degrees abo­ve the hori­zon, hiding behind the moun­ta­ins of Lon­gye­ar­by­en. It will only return to Lon­gye­ar­by­en on 8 March.

But on the heights around Lon­gye­ar­by­en it was pos­si­ble to catch a few rays at mid­day today, like here on the slo­pe of Hiorth­fjel­let on the north side of the Advent­fjord.

The first sun­ri­se of the year on 16 Febru­ary at mid­day over Advent­da­len.

A few clouds made sure you didn’t get an over­do­se of suns­hi­ne.

And if that was too much, you can always take refu­ge in the gla­cier cave at Lon­gye­ar­breen.

Gla­cier cave in Lon­gye­ar­breen.

The­re it is real­ly – REAL­LY! – dark wit­hout a lamp.

Gla­cier cave in Lon­gye­ar­breen wit­hout lamp 😄.

The days when the polar night meant only dark­ness and scur­vy are long gone. Today Lon­gye­ar­by­en offers a lot of varie­ty even in the dark win­ter. The cul­tu­ral calen­dar always offers a lec­tu­re (often in Nor­we­gi­an) or other smal­ler events.

Some­ti­mes the­re are lar­ger events, such as the Polar­jazz jazz fes­ti­val last weekend. Just as the Dark Sea­sons Blues Fes­ti­val at the end of Octo­ber, Polar­jazz fea­tures local artists as well as well-known Nor­we­gi­an and inter­na­tio­nal musi­ci­ans. Both fes­ti­vals have been an inte­gral part of Svalbard’s cul­tu­ral calen­dar for many years.

Longyearbyen’s music sce­ne kicks off

Polar­jazz was ope­ned on Thurs­day evening in Kul­tur­hu­set (the cul­tu­ral cent­re) by a num­ber of local artists. It is impres­si­ve how many acti­ve musi­ci­ans Lon­gye­ar­by­en has to offer – after all, it is a vil­la­ge with a popu­la­ti­on of around 2500. But how many vil­la­ges with a popu­la­ti­on of 2500 can put tog­e­ther a pro­gram­me of almost three hours, with hard­ly anyo­ne on stage for more than one song?

Ope­ning evening of the Polar­jazz fes­ti­val
with musi­ci­ans from Lon­gye­ar­by­en at the Kul­tur­hus.

Com­mis­sio­ned work for the Spits­ber­gen Trea­ty

The pro­gram­me con­tin­ued until Sun­day, with num­e­rous events. One of the high­lights was undoub­ted­ly the world pre­mie­re of a work by Bug­ge Wes­selt­oft in the Huset, com­mis­sio­ned and rea­li­sed for the 100th anni­ver­sa­ry of the Spits­ber­gen Trea­ty, which came into force in 1925. In the nine sequen­ces of his work, Wes­selt­oft has incor­po­ra­ted ever­y­thing he asso­cia­tes with Sval­bard, both soni­cal­ly and visual­ly, to the delight of audi­en­ces and cri­tics ali­ke.

World pre­mie­re of the work by Bug­ge Wes­selt­oft at Huset.

Few, if any, seem to have noti­ced that he cho­se the Well­man-Bjør­vig-Bent­sen sto­ry, a dra­ma from 1898-99 set in the Rus­si­an archi­pe­la­go Franz Josefs Land, for the sec­tion devo­ted to the dra­ma­tic histo­ry of the various north pole expe­di­ti­ons, or they have sim­ply over­loo­ked it.

Ella Marie Hæt­ta Isak­sen

Ano­ther high­light was the per­for­mance of Sami sin­ger and actress Ella Marie in Kul­tur­hu­set. Here the music was hot and loud, with modern sounds that didn’t lose their cul­tu­ral roots. The poli­ti­cal mes­sa­ges were not negle­c­ted eit­her, such as the poli­ti­cal­ly com­mit­ted Sami singer’s unmist­aka­ble gree­ting to the Nor­we­gi­an govern­ment, in which two midd­le fin­gers play­ed the lea­ding roles. Anyo­ne who has the chan­ce to see Ella Marie Hæt­ta Isak­sen, as she is known in full, on stage should not miss it.

Ella Marie and band on stage in kul­tur­hu­set.

If you are thin­king about taking a cul­tu­ral trip to the polar night, you can take a look at the pro­gram­me on their own web­site (2026 is still a long way off, alt­hough pre­pa­ra­ti­ons are alre­a­dy under­way behind the sce­nes).

And what else? The light is coming back, the dark core of the polar night is giving way to day­light. But it will be a few weeks befo­re the sun real­ly comes back again.

View over the camp­si­te on Tues­day at noon­ti­me: the polar night is coming to an end.

As usu­al, a few more pic­tures for fur­ther impres­si­ons:

Click on thumb­nail to open an enlar­ged ver­si­on of the spe­ci­fic pho­to.

The title might make your thoughts go astray 🤪 but don’t worry, this post doesn’t need an age limit.

I recent­ly men­tio­ned ‘Jern­sen­ga’, ‘the iron bed’ in Advent­da­len. If you want to know what that is all about and what the sto­ry behind it is, you can take a look at a new page I have crea­ted sin­ce then. Just click here and you’ll be in Advent­da­len in your mind’s eye.

And as a visu­al high­light, the­re is a pan­o­r­amic view on that page, taken in this incre­di­bly beau­tiful red light that we recent­ly had. It real­ly looks like what I ima­gi­ne it would look like on Mars, it was quite incre­di­ble!

So as not to spoil any­thing, there’s no pic­tu­re here now. But you will of cour­se find pic­tures on the new Jern­sen­ga page.

And if you want even more of the beau­tiful red light, you should take a look at Inne­rhyt­ta.