Irmelin skivinspelning med fjällvandrartermos och yogi-te

Irmelin har just spelat in på Kingside studio materialet till nästa platta.
Sångerna som är vår första förälskelse.

Otto Wellton är vår inspelningstekniker. Tre intensiva inspelningsdagar i vackra höstglödande Sörmland. Fyra katter och vackra stora hund-damen Tamla spred värme med sin närvaro.

Orsapolskor efter Gössa, bröllopskväden,
visor från Dala-Floda,
Enviken, Rättvik,
och inslag av Helsingfors, Estland och Norge.

Visor och låtar vi älskat sen tiden vi började med folksång.
Koraler, kulning, vallvisor, vaggvisor och en massa sköna polsketrallar.

Koklockorna.

Otto, Maria och Karin i kontrollrummet.

Hjärtervärmare från Nås, in the making....

Mina tillbehör i inspelningsbåset. Yogi-te och stämgaffel. Samma gamla fjällvandrartermos.

I januari 2016 räknar vi med att släppa vår kommande platta.
Håll utkik!

Nu är det en stunds vila och återhämtning.
Kreativt skapande kräver en god portion vila, enligt forskning har jag sett.
Så jag bestämmer att det är ok att grotta in sig hemma
nu kring omställning till vintertid.

Eva

Evas julklappstips 2014

Hej julklappstider!
Vi ska nog komma överens i år igen.

Jag väljer gärna att stötta lokala små företag, artister, konsthantverkare och konstnärer.
Eller önskar mig såna julklappar.

Vill gärna dela med mig av några idéer och inriktningar.
Stötta lilla lanthandeln istället för stora varuhuset.
Köp mathantverk och varor direkt hos bonden.
För er som bor i Falun/Enviken, köp julklappar hos Pia i Övertänger.
Högt på min önskelista står en påse med förbrukningsvaror (te, kaffe, kryddor, torrvaror, choklad....) från Handlarn i Övertänger. Bästa service, bra sortiment, bästa knutpunkten i byn. Oumbärligt för de äldre.

I vår globala värld finns också jättefina möjligheter att bidra till att minska fattigdom.
Köp fair trade.
Jag har hittat ett jättespännande företag, Sseko i Uganda som tillverkar så fina skor, väskor, armband,  med jätteviktigt manifest.

En favorit, köp julklappar second hand för att inte bidra till klimatpåfrestningar. 

Anna-Lena Dancy koppar och pralinfat.

Göteborg: Anna-Lena Dancy keramik
Handdrejat är underbara julklappar. Vackra koppar, sköna i handen.
Hennes hemsida hittar du här.

Göteborg: Lohrs PocketMedMera. Deras hemsida hittar du här.
Böcker är underbara julklappar! Läs bra böcker, ställ stora frågor.
Välj att stötta en liten bokhandel fri från de stora bokkedjornas kedjor. En oberoende, privatägd bokhandel.
Här finns mycket mer än böcker, som t ex författaraftnar, utställningar av lokala konstnärer, gött kaffe.
Personlig service. En oas vid Landala torg i Göteborg.

Köp cds av dina favoritmusiker.
Se gärna om de har egna hemsidor där du kan beställa deras cd.
Eller finns utgivna på skivbolag som säljer fysiska ex.
Det är absolut det bästa sättet att stötta den artist du gillar.
Ersättningen från spotify är minimalistiskt låg.

Min sångbok Bröllopssånger och kärleksvisor.
En användbar bok med radikalt kärleksfullt innehåll.
För vardag och fest.
Vackert formgiven av Gabriella Persson.
Beställ av mig via epost info@evarune.se

Sseko Design, hemsidan hittar du här.
Skor, väskor, schalar, armband producerade av kvinnor på väg in i universitetsstudier.
Ett fenomenalt projekt att säkra att de drivna unga kvinnorna kan fullfölja sina drömmar
om högre utbildning och en väg in i yrkesliv med rätt lön och arbetsvillkor.
Se filmen: 



Att ge bort upplevelser, inspiration, nya kunskaper är också väldigt uppskattat.

Göteborg: Körsång i kören Lei-La.
Sjung i kör, utan noter, öppet för alla som vill sjunga folkmusik med mig.
12 tisdagar per termin. Ca en konsert per termin.
Vår kör-blogg hittar du här.

Göteborg: Lektioner i Alexanderteknik.
Barbro Olsson på youtube här.
Och hemsidan hittar du
här.

Göteborg: Lektioner i basal kroppskännedom.
Full av kraft. 

Christina Fors håller kurser du kan läsa om här.

Eva

Voicing - meeting - sharing - circle Folk Voice Tradition 2014

Giving and taking in its most beautiful form. Mutual inspiration!

Folk Voice Tradition 2014

On the last day of our conference we did reflections and circle talking about how to proceed. How can we build stronger circles and voice the tacit knowledge we share? Very empowering! Wordsmith and painting artist Malin Sverige showed us beautiful paintings she created in our conference, her reflection. When her pictures was displayed the whole room started to sing in a collective improvisation.

I wonder how this could be possible in any other conference?

The past weekend I spend time in Stockholm with an amazing gathering of the tribe of folk singers. I'm been awestruck by the power and creativity, filled with new inspiration.

Reunion of friends I've known since many years. Friends from my time as student at KMH (Royal College of Music) Friends from the first ever, the glorious, the turning point: Ethno -90.
Irmelin songsisters, great to be here all the three of us!

And happy to make new friends!

We had to use english as the official language since we speake so many languages in this group and not all of us share the same language root. Finnish, Latvian, Estonian and Scandinavian languages.

I have to say that listening to the songs I couldn't follow the lyrics was maybe the most memorable for me in the concerts. Music has the power to take a grip even if there's no common language. Music is the common language and it speaks clearly about what it is to be a human.

A warm big THANK YOU to Susanne Rosenberg and the crew for empowering the diverse family of singers, storytellers, artists, holistic improvisators.

Eva

Sitting on the train up to Stockholm, enjoying the November peace. Working on the order of songs for my new album.

KMH, The Royal College of Music in Stockholm. Old meets new.

Singers from Sibelius Academy in Helsinki in a song of lamentation.

Singers from Latvia, amazing vocal traditions!

Irmelin goes Finland

Irmelin loves Finland!
We are in Vaasa right now together with hundreds and hundreds of other singers. It's the Vaasa choir Festival. Super nicely organized by the festival crew, many thanks, kiitos kiitos! Your dedication for the vocal music is so uplifting and empowering. Lovely to walk in the center of town and hear choir music in every corner.

Yesterday evening we made a concert at Ritz, a theater-like hall, it's a cinema with totally beautiful original atmospher. Interiors from the time it was built. A special thank you to all who came to listen with so big ears and big hearts. Kiitos to all of you. We allways love to share the stories from the sea, from the travellers, of love, of death, of joy again after the sorrow.

It's always a great pleasure to sing in a hall like this, with good light and sound and a setting that enhance focus and energy for the details in our voices and music.

I wonder if they sometimes dance lindy hop, balboa or boogie woogie here? This is just outside the big cinema hall.

We had a lovely dinner at il Banco, a house built on 1860 for a bank in those days. Today a culinary rich place to go, my dinner was ecellent.

Maria Misgeld at the doors of il Banco.

Today we perform again at Ritz and this time it's a shared concert with the choir Philomela. I'm very much looking forward to sing there. We had super nice sound!

Vaasa train station.

To travel with Karin and Maria, it's my best place to be. Song sisters, you rule!

Eva

Folkvocal powerhouse

This is the power of doing things together.
Creativity in a circle of friends and collegues at its best.
Today is the day we gave ourselves deadline to deliver the songs. Happy birthday our baby!

It's been intensifying work to refine and ellaborate our song-ideas. Let each song grow into its shape and personality. As soon as I open my computer to work with recording my stuff I can see the activity is stirring in our dropbox. New files adding, other filer updating.

We've choosen some photos to add to the full picture of what we want to say with our songs. Maria has put it all together in a document with songs, music & lyrics, texts on scenic matters and small choreography things, photos and other stuff for inspiration. It all looks so exciting now when the full picture takes form into reality.

Soon and very soon it's time to share our work in the full ensemble.
May the songs bloom in your hands, dear fellow singers, song sisters, songstresses of the north, amazing ladies! Maria Misgeld, Susanne Rosenberg, Karin Ericsson Back, Lisa lestander, Maja Ericsson, Sofia Sandén, Marie Axelsson and me. See you soon!
Concert will be on 18th of June in Stockholm.

Eva

Folkvocal day 3 in Stockholm

Today is the World Day of Voice!
What can be a better idea to celebrate than to spend a full day with these powerful and creative song sisters? A capella at it's best.

Amazing how much flow we've had the two past days. The music is coming together beautifully. We have come to the point of putting the whole set together. There are already clear links between some songs, patterns that will go in and out of each other. Yet we have to decide who will sing what, a sort of casting for the different roles.
We are four composers in this and it's definitely four unique voices with so much personality. We are also united by the roots of our vocal tradition.

Can't wait to meet with the four other singers who will together with us make the full ensemble.

Susanne Rosenberg
Maria Misgeld
Ulrika Bodén
Eva Rune
Lisa Laestander
Karin Ericsson Back
Maja Eriksson
Sofia Sandén

Mark the day in your calendars. Please come and share this unique event with us when we perform the piece in Stockholm on the 18th of June.

In the studio composing music.

Folkvocal - the never ending river of melodies

Doing what we like most.
Singing full days. Creating new songs.
Exploring new grounds the way just we can do.
So much fun, sometimes we just explode in laughter.

Improvising music with these three amazing ladies is a never ending river of melodies where we set sail and aim for new horizons.

What happens is that we have a common ground in the folk music that makes it very easy to start. Where it all ends might be something no one expected. Four personalities but a common language.

The yellow house to the left is where we stay. Prästkragens Inn.

Springtime is in the air.

Ulrika Bodén.

Maria Misgeld.

Susanne Rosenberg.

Here you can see more, Folkvocal, Susanne Rosenberg

I don't know if it's the fresh air or all the focus and creativity that makes us sleep early in the night. Tomorrow is a new day in the djungle of music!
Eva

Irmelin creative days

Spider web with water drops.

Autumn beauty.

In the material world we are here.
But where we are in the wholeness, it's more difficult to tell.

This and next week Irmelin is working on new songs. Music and poetry by us.

Sometimes even collectively made by the three of us in Irmelin.

Among other things that inspire me is simplicity. That a painter can paint just a few lines and create art with simplicity. I'm not there yet. But it makes me curious, and it lights my fire.



Time to prepare for tomorrow and get some rest.
Eva

Irmelin on Germany tour

Irmelin diary, May 2013

Three concerts in three very different venues.
First concert was a big hall, Altes Elwerk in Greifswald. Chamber music feeling, a wonderful audience giving us the most heartful response.
Second concert in an out door venue on the country side, Venne Früling Folk Festival. Beautiful small, families, young people, rain and sunshine in mix, and a super nice sound. Thank you sound engineer, and thank you lovely audience!
Third concert in a club in Berlin. In the nice area of Prentzlauerberg, full of small and hidden pearls of culture everywhere. Great night out in Berlin. Met lovely people in both audience and the local arrangers, promoters of vocal music and excellent artists, Mattias and Tania. 

Greifswald, Nordischer Klang.
Sun + dark sky, I like!

Walking in town, first night.

Fish with green fish-bone are a lovely tasting fish. Dinner on a boat in the canal.

Hotel Galerie. I can recommend this place. Nice paintings in my room. The chinese lucky cookie had a good line saying:

Sometimes, travelling to new places can bring great transformation.

On the road towards Osnabrück and the small village Venne.

Us having the best spot in sunshine on Venne Früling Folk Festival.
Outside the café where I expected Aragorn sit in a corner. Instead I saw 4 Gandalf walking around on the festival area.....

Astrid's garden. A truly inspiring place to retreat after concert. Frogs singing in the pond.

Last day in Berlin. Haus der Sinne.
Tango, lindy, blues dance on some evenings, and now, vocal evening with choirs and Irmelin!

Back stage in the dark cellar.....
What can be more Berlin than a club like this.....

German audience, what a wonderful tour we've had meeting you all great people! Hope to see you soon again!
Eva

Final steps in Irmelin CD-making

Karin, Maria and me in vocal trio Irmelin are just in the final steps of the process of making our new CD. It's a great pleasure to see it come into form. On Monday it's time to do the mastering. I'm very excited about all this. As usual it's also a bit of a labour emotionally. Will this music come out the way we dreamed about it? The stories we want to tell, will it be touching? As soon as the CD is printed it's totaly up to the listener, but at this point it's a fragile and yet strong walk of balance carrying something precious in our hands. A work with lot of heart in it. Everytime you put your naked heart into the work it's also a portion of pain to it.

In this process we are united and working together in the very best way. The Irmelin trio stands strong together! It's a joy to work with Karin and Maria, to unite with their artistry and personality. I learn so much everytime we work together!

Some pictures from this week:

Yesterday I visited a second hand store I've never been to before. Lucky me I found a dress compleetely hand made with fine knowledge in hand craft, probably from the 50th or 60th. I'm happy about the bright colour, even with out the sun shining through it's the colours of fire. Double layers of fabric. i wish I knew who made it and what parties this dress has been to before.

Eva

What a joy to sing to the elders

The last two weeks we did 22 concerts to the elders. Vocal trio Irmelin in Göteborg, what a joy!

It's a fine job, the elders get so happy, they need this input from outside to put colour to the daily life. Many have loss of memory, sit in wheel chairs, can't take part in society like they used to. It's a good thing that the city employ us musicians and make sure they get live music when they can't go to concerts in town anymore.

Our songs come from the north sea, shanties and sea men songs. In the audience we've had a number of people who worked on the sea. Here's the tattoo one former sea captain showed us after concert. He was 16 years old when he started on the sea. The tattoo was made then.

Dotted dresses and red shoes has been our outfit for performance.

Most days lovely winter weather. Frosty trees, minus degrees, blue sky.

Göteborg by night. Many days we kept on working late after doing our concerts. We have to compleete the mixing of our new coming cd and we did the photo session as well.

No wonder that I have been extraordinary tired this weekend, the first free days in looong time.

And what can be more energizing than dancing? Today is balboa boost at the dance club. I'll be there!

Eva

Dreams of Faroe Islands

Do you also return to places time after time in your dreams? This night I was in the green atlantic islands of my dreams again. I often come back to the Faroe Islands. In the dream I was travelling on a boat going between the many islands, and I saw huge whales just under the surface. There was a mother whale and her baby, they where light grey in their skin. Some of my friends where on the boat as well. I woke up with a feeling of happiness and peace.

All my life I've been interested to go to places where I have a view. Like mountains, the northern mountains of Sweden, wich in some ways are a little bit similar to the Faroe Islands.

I love to see the sky from horizon to horizon.

And the sea.

I can study the colours of the sea and the sky, colours that hardly can be captured in a photo. Fog and haze and light create the miracles of beauty in theese places.

Somehow I have prefered to walk there, while my sister is a true sailing woman, adventurous on the sea.

I'm more a mountain soul.

When I climb up I get so excited to see what's behind the top of the mountain, what's the view on the other side?

Last summer on Mykines.

I'm longing to go back.

Take a look at the clouds and the sky today, maybe you will see some extraordinary light and beauty.

Eva

Hommage to a black back pack.

Some time ago, when Rosenbergs 7 was touring all over, I bought myself a black back pack, a ryggsäck. Made of thick fabric, with a hidden pocket where the straps could be hidden during flights. Of the brand Naturkompaniet. This was in the 1900-hundreds, well, it could have been around 1995. Now, some 17 years later, this black back pack is still serving me, as a long time companion and best friend. Zippers are original, I have only made one repair where a seem has given up. My friend is here in the photo to the left:


How many places have you and I seen together? You are a great globetrotter, my dear back pack. On ALL my tours you have been my favourite bag. Sometimes far away to South Africa, USA, all over Europe. You have followed me all over Sweden too, and our neighbour countries in the north.

I have started to wonder now if I should give you some holiday. I think you deserve that. Sit and dream of all the travels we made, and not carry too heavy luggage. We'll see, on some special occasions you and I will still travel together, I'm sure.

You are the type of stuff I like so much. Made in such long life quality that I can give you to next generation. Care and repair is always good. When I think of how the ground crew on airports treat bags, then I think it must be some magic with this bag, how well preserved you still are after many flights each year.

A couple of times you went missing after transfers with delay. Every time you kept coming back. I never worried too much, I knew we will meet again.

I went to the store where I bought you, Naturkompaniet. Unfortunately they don't have back packs of the brand Naturkompaniet anymore. I planned to go find you a partner, you see? Yesterday I ran into a bag just by chance when I was shopping in Falun. I was at Cykel and Fjäll to buy some spare parts to bikes, and on the floor there was one bag in the colour of Falu red paint, the last one of its type. A bag made for expeditions to Himalaya I should say, in really thick fabric and really well made zippers. Yes! Suitable for a touring musician.


Shopping in Falun has been wonderful! Not to speak about yesterday too, for the first time in many years I was shopping together with my sister! My best buy was a black dress for Irmelin concerts, plus equipment for my new ZOOM. If you are shopping in Falun and looking for some vintage clothes, go visit Myrornas. Oh heaven, so many dresses! This is the summer when I started to dress like Hemulen, one of the caracters in Tove Jansson stories. Oh, he's one of a kind, academic interests of botanical collections, of sports, and he's not a friend of the hattifnatts. He's always dressed in a dress.

I can agree.

You are always dressed in a dress.


Eva

Powerful sisters: Rising Appalachia

Good morning world!
Today I want to share some beautiful work by sisters Leah and Chloe Smith who are the creative duo Rising Appalachia.


Thank you Håkan for introducing me to this beautiful music.

Stand up, look around.....

It's from their song, like a mantra, and it makes me attuned to the new day.
It's a wednesday in January, and it's right now, right here.
It's our life, and it's a mystery on one level.
It's our free choice to make this day the way we want it to be. Be corageous.

Go well into your day, don't forget to be awesome!

Eva