Department of Traditional Music

Photo: Adnan Icagic

Adress:
Tromsø Museum, N-9037 Tromsø, Norway
Tlf. +47 776 45000 (switchboard)
776 45042 (direct)
Visiting address: Lars Thøringsv. 10.
The department is open Monday-Friday in the opening time of the museum.
E-mail: Ola Graff


Ola Graff is Magister Artium from 1985 with a dissertation about the yoik singer Per Heatta. He was Dr.Philos in 2002 with a dissertation about coastal sami yoik tradition



Om kjæresten min vil jeg joike (A song to my lover) is a documentation about an unknown yoik song tradition from the Sami area of coastal Finnmark. The book relates the historical development in the meeting between the Sami minority culture and the Norwegian majority culture, how the yoik tradition may have developed and eventually disappeared in the years between the two wars.

Click on the picture of the book to hear the yoik melodies.

"Om kjæresten min vil jeg joike"

The department was started in 1949 by the lecturer Arnt Bakke. Before this time the traditional music of Northern Norway had been collected by various enthusiasts. The first large collection originates from the priest Ole Tobias Olsen from Rana. Professional music collectors such as Catharinus Elling and O.M. Sandvik had also visited the region. Arnt Bakke managed the department mainly in his sparetime up to his death in 1976. Since 1982 there has been a permanent position as curator/researcher who manages the department.

The department is responsible for working with traditional music in Northern Norway, including Norwegian, Sami and Finnish traditions. The department is a center for ethnomusicological studies connected to this region. The main tasks are collecting and documentation, studying and publishing.

In the museums exibitions you can find a presentation of some yoik melodies and an antique church organ with two religious traditional songs.

What are in the archives

Major projects

Selected publications