Music
Juniper & The Wolf
An ever-evolving, artistic project that has been performed across 16 countries, over 7 years, featuring traditional storytelling, ballads, multilingual folk songs, original music, and a host of surprise guest musicians.
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What is that instrument?
From a young age, Geneviève developed a deep love for Early Music. While hungrily searching for recordings to add to her musical library one day, she stumbled upon a largely unlabled track, entitled Swedish Dance Suite. The piece featured what she could only describe as ‘the saddest violin in the world.’ At the time, there was no way to discover what the instrument was, but she fell unmistakenly in love with the sound of it. Ten years later, a friend would return from Sweden bearing a strang-looking instrument—the Nyckelharpa (or keyed-fiddle). With a single note, she new she had found the sound she had been searching for . . .
The Nyckelharpa
The Nyckelharpa (or keyed fiddle/harp) is considered by many to be the quintessential national folk instrument of Sweden. While it is bowed instrument, like the violin, rather than a players fingertips shortening the string to change pitch, the nyckelharpa employs tangents along the neck, much like a hurdy-gurdy. The earliest possible depiction of the instrument dates back to approx. 1350 in Gotland. The version Geneviève plays contains four playable strings—with the lowest string being a C drone, and G, C, A strings with corresponding rows of keys that change pitch. Underneath the four played strings lie a total of twelve sympathetic strings, tuned to each half step of the scale, which resonate when the instrument is played, creating it’s otherworldly sound.
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