Submitted Photo Melissa Holm-Johansen, right, performing “Edvard Grieg: Songs from The Heart” with Steve Swanson, left, at Minot State University on Oct. 9, 2021.

The Minot Chamber Chorale is celebrating the 200th anniversary of the first 52 Norwegians who journeyed across the seas to North America in 1825 in its free concert Friday at 7 p.m. in Christ Lutheran Church.

The Crossings: Now We Belong! concert is a selection of choral arrangements of Norwegian folk music that Dr. Emerson Eads, artistic director of the Minot Chamber Chorale, has thoroughly researched and arranged.

“The whole concert really ties together this idea of how we’re all trying to find our place and our homeland and how we can reconnect that with our ancestry and continue to enrich our lives with that connection,” Eads said.

In addition to it being the 200th anniversary of the first 52 Norwegians to migrate to North America, it also happens to be the 25th anniversary of the Scandinavian Heritage Park’s full-size replica of the Gol Stave Church from Gol Hallingdal, Norway, being built here in Minot.

“There’s a really cool connection there with the city and obviously with the Scandinavian Heritage Association that has generously sponsored our season,” Eads said.

Some of the songs in the program were actually requested and chosen by the chorale members themselves, many who grew up singing certain tunes.

“It’s been a really neat process for the chamber chorale,” Eads said. “Many of them have deep Scandinavian connections and roots and discovering aspects of these songs that they’ve heard their grandparents singing or remember from afar has made this a very interesting project.”

After Eads collected the music and set about arranging the songs, he enlisted the help of Dr. Eric Furuseth, a longtime member of the chamber chorale, to weave the songs into a meaningful narrative arc. The narrative is designed to help carry the listeners through the music despite language barriers that may exist.

“Eric has written a narration of sorts, where he’s sort of the tour guide along the route,” Eads said. “Most of this music is in Norwegian. There will be some in English and Swedish but most of it is Norwegian.”

Rolf Stang, a retired vocal coach from New York who currently lives in Minot, assisted Eads and the chamber choral members with their Norwegian pronunciation in preparation for the show.

“He’s a world -renowned Norwegian coach and he helped us with our Norwegian numerous times,” Eads said. “We’re really grateful he was able to do that and that Minot has him here.”

Music of the people

Going beyond the language, Melissa Holm-Johansen, the soprano and soloist being featured on nine of the 14 songs for Crossings, believes storytelling to be central to the survival of Norwegian folk music today.

“These songs are so recognizable and have survived centuries after centuries,” Holm-Johansen said. “It’s because of the text and lyricism.”

Holm-Johansen is a Norwegian-American lyric soprano vocalist and voice teacher based in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Holm-Johansen first met Eads when she came to Minot for the first time in 2021 to perform her recital of “Edvard Grieg: Songs from the Heart” at Minot State University.

“When I first heard her singing that Grieg recital here in Ann Nicole (Nelson Hall), I was just blown away by the beauty and warmth in her sound,” Eads said.

As Eads was curating the music and arrangements for Crossings, he thought the addition of Holm-Johansen’s vocals combined with her knowledge of Norwegian folk music would add even more depth to an already culturally rich program.

“There’s a fresh, clean warmth in her sound that really lends itself beautifully to this old world reintroduction of this music,” Eads said.

“Ultimately, this program is about the music of the folk, the Norwegian people, and I think Emerson captured that really beautifully in these arrangements,” Holm-Johansen said.

According to Holm-Johansen, Norwegian music is recognizable by the minor modes it is often written in, the different leaps in the melody and the improvisational flourishes and ornamentation throughout the music.

“If you sit in the audience, you can hear it within these arrangements that Emerson has written, that there is a sense of expansiveness through the choral parts and then with a soprano kind of hovering above that,” she said. “That’s powerful because it just draws you back into this music of the people.”

Norwegian folk music is very nature based with a focus on mountains, ocean and water, but Holm-Johansen said there is a large lyrical focus on coming home as well.

“There’s this idea of coming home and feeling the safety and security of knowing where your home is, and what draws you to your home and when you’re out traveling, what brings you back,” she said.

“Whether one is Norwegian or not, I think you can enjoy this music, because it is so close to the heart,” Holm-Johansen said. “You can really feel and hear a thread through the music that has to do with longing for your homeland, of course, but also taking that big risk and stepping out into the unknown because it’s got this vastness about it.”

A journey for everyone

For Holm-Johansen, the theme of Crossings resonates with her on a personal level as a Norwegian-American who immigrated to the United States after high school.

“Halden is a town in the southeastern part of Norway,” Holm-Johansen said. “I grew up there, a great town. It’s a little harbor town with a paper mill like most of these small Norwegian towns.”

“Then I decided I wanted to move to the States. I wanted something different. So I left Halden to move over here and go to college in ’94,” she said.

Holm-Johansen said her immigration to the United States was greatly different from that of those first 52 Norwegians, but that aspects of her journey remained the same.

“I think it’s still like the unknown and just not quite knowing what you’re stepping into. I think even for me being raised bilingual with an American mom and a Norwegian father, it was still kind of a big step for me and still scary in many ways,” she said.

“I still to this day will say Norway is my home. That’s where my heart is. But I’ve lived here for longer than I lived in Norway and I’m established here and I have family here and I have my friends and my work,” she said. “I’m drawn constantly back and forth and so that sometimes is hard, but it also makes for a very interesting, rich life that I have two homes.”

The overall tone for much of Norwegian folk music is melancholic but this by no means applies to every song including the songs in this program.

“Not everything is minor and melancholy on this program. I would say the opposite. I think a lot of it’s very hopeful and very lighthearted,” Holm-Johansen said.

One of the program’s songs is actually a bridal march. “My wife walked down the aisle to a choir singing this bridal march so it’s really special to me,” Eads said.

“It’s very fun and rhythmic and upbeat and sounds very joyful,” Holm-Johansen said of the bridal march.

“There’s also an arrangement of “Peace on Earth,” which is actually the hymn that we all know, “Fairest Lord Jesus,” which is just such a gorgeous text in Norwegian,” Eads said.

The concert will also feature songs from ABBA, Sissel, Lillebjorn Nilsen and Jan Eggum along with the featured folk music melodies.

“Emerson has done such a great job creating a very eclectic program with the chamber chorale where there is something for everyone,” Holm-Johansen said.