Taus – Sigrid Moldestad

Empowered female fiddlers.

The long list of famed fiddlers from previous centuries is dominated by men. Despite the fact that female fiddlers where in the minority, there have been exceptions to the rule, among other places in Nordfjord and Sunnmøre on Norway´s west coast. In her concert performance and CD «Taus», Spellemann prize-winner Sigrid Moldestad presents forgotten stories of women in folk music. The recording offers fresh interpretations of traditional music as well as newly written songs by Moldestad, including the song «Samuline» which has become a national radio hit described as «one of the most powerful songs of the year»

Taus is about lively women who would not let themselves be subdued, who allowed music to become a part of their lives which otherwise consisted of work, duties, neediness and poverty. It is about dark-minded men of power who saw their instrument, music and lust for life as a threat. 200 years later, Sigrid Moldestad grew up in Breim in Nordfjord together with the «Honndal girls» (Honndalstausene), a group of female fiddlers. The fiddle is back in the hands of the women of Nordfjord, and Sigrid Moldestad often hears stories of Samuline Seljeset and other women who left their homestead on horseback to go off and play fiddle.