Løvlid, Unni

Unni Løvlid - Foto Geir Dokken

Singer born in Hornindal, Sogn og Fjordane, in 1976. Resides in Oslo

Unni Løvlid is one of the most distinctive young musicians in Norway today. She is an innovative artist, and refuses to be bound by standards or rules. Important teachers and sources of inspiration for her have been her mother Oline Løvlid, Marta Seljeset Frøland, and others in Hornindal. She wrote her thesis Ein song etter… on the basis of what she had learned from sources in her home village. Løvlid is a trained music teacher, and has a degree in performance from the Norwegian Academy of Music. She has taught there as well as at the Ole Bull Academy. She is a member of the groups Fjøgl (formed in 2001) and Rusk (formed in 1999). Løvlid has qualified for the elite Category A in the National Contest for Traditional Music, and released her first solo recording, So ro liten tull, in 1999, where she presented children’s songs. Her second solo recording, Vita, is an unusual production, which was recorded in Emanuel Vigeland’s mausoleum in Oslo. She works as a free-lance musician, and has held concerts all over the world. She is extremely versatile musically, and collaborates with other musicians across genres and cultures. In 2006 she performed Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire as a special cultural project in Oslo, and she composed a commissioned work for a concert at the Årinn Festival in Kristiansand in the same year. In 2007 she opened the Grieg Anniversary, and will also launch her new solo project, a collaboration with Hild Sofie Tafjord, Håkon Kornstad, Lena Grenager and Frode Haltli.

Discography

1999: So ro liten tull (Løvlyd)
2002: Rusk (Heilo)
2005: Vita (Heilo)
2005: Bridges – live in China (Heilo)
2006: Rusk II (Heilo)
2006: Draumkvedet, Arne Nordheim (Simax Classics)
2006: Fortal (Heilo)

Appeared on

1997: Ferdafolk, with Ingunn Linge Valdal and Knut Ivar Bøe (Heilo)
2000: Frie former, with Honndalstausene (Heilo)
2001: Norsk folkemusikk og folkedans, various artists (Heilo)
2002: Listen – the art of Arne Nordheim, various artists (Aurora)
2006: Gjenklang, various artists (Heilo)