In honor of its 30th anniversary, the Hardanger Fiddle Association of America (HFAA) will hold a gala concert on Friday evening, April 12, 2013, 7:30 PM, at the Nordic Heritage Museum (http://www.nordicmuseum.org/), 3014 Northwest 67th St., Seattle, WA. The concert, all proceeds of which will go to benefit the HFAA, features many of the most talented performers of Scandinavian folk music and dance in the Seattle area and further afield.

The performers include Hardanger fiddlers Anika Anderson, Bill Boyd, Deb Collins-Hill, Rachel Nesvig, Peter Michaelsen, and Loretta Kelley; singer Anita Anderson, singer/harpist Beth Kollé, nyckelharpa player Bart Brashers, the popular Scandinavian dance band Hale Bill and the Bopps, and the Gig Harbor Spelemannslag, a multi-generational pan-Scandinavian group of fiddlers where all the adults in the group have a son or daughter also in the group. Also appearing will be members of the TinnFelen Hardanger Fiddle Ensemble, which plays traditional Norwegian dance music on Hardanger fiddles in multi-part arrangements. There will also be performances of traditional Norwegian dance by Judy Patterson, Jerry Walsh, Kathi Ploeger, Don Meyers, Silje Sodal, and Bob Hamilton, supplemented by members of the Leikarringen of Leif Erikson Lodge Sons of Norway, as well as a performance of the athletic halling dance by the teens of the Poulsbo Sons of Norway Leikarring.

Featured at the concert will be a rare appearance by the Hardingkvartetten, a string quartet composed of two Hardanger fiddles plus a harding-viola and harding-cello, both complete with decoration and sympathetic strings, made by luthier Lynn Berg of Eugene, Oregon. They will be performing music based on Norwegian folk tunes composed especially for the quartet by David Code.

The HFAA was founded in 1983 and is an educational nonprofit organization dedicated to increasing knowledge of the rich tradition of Hardanger fiddle (hardingfele) playing, with approximately 250 members worldwide. The hardingfele is a violin native to Norway with four or five sympathetic strings running underneath the fingerboard, and richly decorated with mother-of-pearl and bone inlay on the fingerboard and tailpiece and pen-and-ink drawings called rosing on the top, back and sides. Instead of a scroll, the top of the pegbox is usually carved into the shape of a heraldic lion or dragon. Its extensive repertory of dance and ceremonial tunes has been passed down in living tradition for over three hundred years and is considered one of the most highly developed and sophisticated folk music traditions in northern Europe.

Tickets for the HFAA Benefit Concert are $15.00 general admission / $10.00 student when ordered in advance (order online at http://hfaa.brownpapertickets.com), or at the door $18.00 general admission / $13.00 student. For more information: http://www.hfaa.org, president@hfaa.org, (612) 568-7448.

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