Swedish Traditional Music Project

Intangible Cultural Heritage and the Survival of the Swedish Musical Tradition - Documentary



The project took 18 months to organise and involved a 3 week field trip to Sweden to interview a range of influential traditional musicians in historic settings to discover more about their musical heritage and how different aspects of this has been saved from near extinction.

The trip involved 3 main locations, Skansen in Stockholm, Valby in Vesteras, and Jamtli in Ostersund. It also involved a number of visits to museum stores in the localities. The areas covered by the research included, the nyckelharpa, Swedish bagpipes, medieval ballads, kulning (as a surviving pastoral vocal tradition), the traditional fiddle, and the Sami shamanic drum.

The full length film of the project was created by Nadine Smith of ForBea Films and can be viewed through the link below.