THE NEWS FROM BRUNER’S BROOD – MARCH 18, 2023

Hi, everyone! It has been a while since I have been able to post an update on www.trentbruner.com and my Facebook artist page. Part of the reason is that I have been forced to rebuild my website and reorganize content because of it. This process has taken longer than originally planned, and is still not finished. It has also been a busy time for me since I returned to Norway from Manitoba in late August. Here’s the first part of my update. Church music activities in the Osterøy Lutheran Fellowship have not been as active as earlier due to the dramatic rise in power prices throughout Norway and Europe since November 2021. This has forced me and my fellow cantor, Ivar Mæland, to find alternative locations and schedules to work on our organ skills, although I do practice my hymns on piano at least once a week to make sure if there is an organ failure, I’m ready to play them on piano on short notice. Although the Norwegian Lutheran Church did get some power subsidy help from the Norwegian government for December 2022, which allowed local Christmas concerts and scheduled church services to continue, the entire subsidy we received was just enough to cover regular power use and keep churches warmer than has been recent practice. But it was done so that Christmas traditions could be honoured and celebrated as before in both school and community settings. Normal church duties for me have continued under revised scheduling due to the present power situation. In late April 2022, I was called in to be a substitute piano teacher for the Alver Culture School, in the Alver Municipality northwest of Bergen, due to a shortage of substitute music teachers. In mid-May 2022, I also received a temporary position as a piano teacher for a sick leave situation that was originally scheduled from mid-May to December 2022, but in October, was extended to June 2023. I have ten beginner level piano students to teach on Thursday afternoons through the school year and have been glad to help a group of elementary school students who did not have any piano instruction from January to May 2022 while their regular teacher is away. I still serve as a member of the Canadian Grand Masters Fiddling Association’s Board of Directors from an ocean away. My main role on the board is to act as the historian and collect and analyze as much historical information as possible in assisting the board to honour and fulfill its mandate of promoting, developing and preserving the traditions of Canadian fiddling and its related disciplines. Also, I have been helping in the organizing with the board the 2023 Canadian Grand Masters Fiddling Competition, which will be happening in Truro, Nova Scotia August 25-26, 2023. Further details on the 33rd edition of our national fiddle championship are being released via https://www.canadiangrandmasters.ca and https://www.cgmfcnovascotia2023.com. More information continues to be released, so check these sites for further updates. Choir activities for me have been busy behind the scenes as well. In Fall 2022, the Tysnes Chamber Choir performed a program of Swedish choral music in October twice in the communities of Strandebarm and Onarheim, and presented their annual Christmas concert of religious Christmas favourites in the Village of Våge on December 17th. This spring, the Tysnes Chamber Choir will have a spring fundraising basar on March 26th in Onarheim as well as share a part of a church concert that will be presented in early June 2023 in the Tysnes region as well as in Hosanger Lutheran Church on the Island of Osterøy, where our family resides. More information on this concert is coming in the next paragraph. In addition, the Alvidt-Manger Singers from the Knarvik region held their annual fall fundraising basar on November 5th, 2022 in Knarvik with an enthusiastic audience in attendance. They also participated as guests for a Christmas concert with the Sæbø School Concert Band in Sæbø Lutheran Church on Sunday, December 11th. I was there to conduct both times during Fall 2022. But in January 2023, this choir began rehearsals for three different concerts this calendar year. They will be having their annual spring fundraising show, supper and dance on Saturday, March 25th in the Dale district, north of Alversund with favourite songs they have been rehearsing through the past few months. Secondly, this choir will share a June concert with the Tysnes Chamber Choir in Hosanger Lutheran Church on Saturday, June 10th to conclude the official season for both choirs, with many church music and gospel selections. The third concert presentation is a special project that will have one concert presented five times during September 2023 north of Bergen. These dates are listed already in the events section of my Facebook page and will be repeated on my new website once all the upgrading is in place. The theme of this concert is “Frå hav til fjell I Nordhordland,” which translated as “From Sea to Mountain in North Hordland.” This local concert tour is organized under a newly established culture organization named “North Hordland Music Theatre” (“Nordhordland musikkkteater” in Norwegian). The concert will feature over 20 original songs of a regional songwriter named Arne Høyland, who will be celebrating his 70th birthday this June and will be honoured with the Alvidt-Manger Singers singing backup vocals, selected vocal soloists, a backup band with piano, bass, guitar, drums and accordion, and other instruments included as the songs determine. This organization has its own Facebook page (in Norwegian) that is easy to find, with content posted twice a week on Tuesdays and Fridays. For those in Norway, dates for these concerts will be from September 13th-17th, 2023. More information is forthcoming on concert tickets and participants. A separate English article on this project will appear in my next post, as well as other Norwegian performance news and a Canadian performance update. I’ll close here for now. Until next time, see you somewhere down the musical trail! Musically Yours, Trent