The Slow TV Blog: 2018

Showing posts with label 2018. Show all posts

Friday, 15 June 2018

Grieg Minute by Minute, Opus by Opus

NRK's Grieg Slow TV Logo

Broadcast starts this evening, 15th June, 17:30 CET / 16:30 BST. Official website in English at this link, show page at this link and official Facebook event page here.
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The countdown to NRK's Grieg Slow TV has well and truly begun. What will be the celebration of a composer with national resonance, "the soundtrack to Norway", is live on Norwegian TV on June 15th.

"Grieg Minutt for Minutt" translates as "Grieg Minute by Minute" and will be a chronological progression through all of Grieg's 74 opuses. A detailed breakdown of each opus is on the official event website.

If you're thinking "THIS CAN'T BE SLOW TV! IT ISN'T A PRETTY PICTURE!", Slow TV isn't just about a pretty picture. It's about taking the time it takes to show something in its own pace, in full. If that includes a pretty picture, well, that's nice. But it's also about a sense of completeness and allowing the subject to be in its own pace. If that's racing car quick for Formula 1, or snail slow for snail racing, its appropriate for the innate pace of a Slow TV subject.

A translation from griegminuttforminutt.no reads:

"Grieg minute by minute - this year's big TV event! June 15, 2018, it is 175 years since Edvard Grieg was born. We mark the day with the world's longest Grieg concert, 30 hours live on NRK!

A classical music festival in Bergen! Grieg minute by minute is an outstanding opportunity to experience Grieg's production from opus 1-74, performed by the best of Norwegian music life. Troldhaugen, Edvard Grieg's home, will be open throughout the event and a center for the big crowd party. There are also great events and experiences in Grieghallen, with Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, choirs and other musicians. The Broadcasting Orchestra also contributes great music from Store Studio. Perhaps there will be touches from other parts of the country too!

What you now see on the website is just the beginning - a taste bite. The list of artists and Grieg opus numbers is updated continuously.

The program runs from the afternoon of 15 June until midnight 16 June. There will be night concerts in the Grieghallen, 24 hours a day at Troldhaugen and a folk party all summer night. Do you want a night of Peer Gynt in the Grieghallen, have breakfast at Troldhaugen with the wonderful cello sonate or experience the string quartet in the gray light at Nordåsvannet?"

Extensive and developing information on the performers in NRK Grieg is here.

The Full Works Concert indeed... NRK Grieg is announced.

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Wednesday, 14 March 2018

Classical Music Slow TV - Grieg

Imagine a 30 hour long Grieg playlist...

Get your Grieg playlist to hand. One of the Slow TV shows in development for broadcast later this year is a marathon play through of all Grieg's 74 opuses.

I've long thought of a substantial work of classical music as a perfect illustration for the complete-feeling of well made Slow TV. Somewhere between Handel's Messiah or Wagner's Ring Cycle.

The UK radio station Classic FM has The Full Works Concert which often allows a work to be expressed more fully than the popular few minutes that make it onto compilations. Which illustrates visual media quite well - it's edited down to the most exciting, stimulating shots and takes, which keeps attention but then extracts a lot of other good moments. And that sense of wholeness.

Speaking of wholeness, June 15th this year marks 175 years since Grieg was born, and so, the Norwegian broadcaster NRK2 will be showing a 30 hour live show of his work. Now, that is a Full Works Concert.

Different locations are currently hosting the production including Grieghallen in Bergen, NRK's studio in Marienlyst in Oslo and Grieg's hometown of Troldhaugen.

The success of Slow TV in Norway owes a lot to tapping into subjects and themes of regional and national identity. This certainly keeps up the trend - NRK producer Thomas Hellum comments that "This is the soundtrack to Norway".

Starting as an idea on Facebook seems fitting when bearing in mind the use of "In the Hall of the Mountain King" in "The Social Network" film about the creation of Facebook. There is also a Facebook event page for the broadcast

It isn't the first time Slow TV has been themed around music; in 2014 the entire 899 hymns of the Norwegian Hymn Book were sung live over two and a half days.

Concerning #NRKGrieg ,The Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra page reads:

"Most concerts take place in Bergen. The orchestral works will be performed at the Grieghallen and the Large Studio of Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra and the Orchestra Orchestra (KORK), while the main emphasis of the works - piano pieces, songs and chamber music in general - will be performed at Troldhaugen. "

"We start at 18:00 on Friday 15 June... Peer Gynt in stage version around 0100 Saturday, Rondane at sunrise, Holbergsuiten for lunch Saturday, Haugtussa for dinner, and finally Psalms - Grieg's last opus - at the tomb at Troldhaugen late Saturday night."

Thursday, 15 February 2018

Slow TV takes a hike in Norway

Last year's 8-hour-hike Slow TV setting the pace for this year

It looks like NRK's Slow TV is going for a jolly good hike in Norway this summer. Several of them. And in keeping with previous Slow TV shows, we can expect hours of it, too.

Last year we had Besseggen Minutt for Minutt, an eight hour live hike, which no doubt was some pre-production for this year's much longer walking-in-Norway project.

Over four weeks in the summer there will be long televised hikes at Hardangervidda, in Jotunheimen, Vesterålen and Innre Troms. Norwegian adventurer Lars Monsen will be leading the way in some of Norway's spectacular landscape.

Maybe think Bear Grylls going all Crocodile Dundee on Walkabout in Norwegian wilderness live on TV. Though it remains to be seen if we'll get the presenter picking out semi-digested apple from bear faeces to add to a campfire dish.

Five days a week over the four weeks there will be live TV shows. In the evenings, it becomes summertime from places on the road, in the same way as in previous years. It will be Slow TV during the day and show with guests, artists and audiences in the summertime in new places every night.

"I am looking forward to it! Nature experiences are about a good time. Transmitting mountain tours minute by minute is simply brilliant", says Lars Monsen.

Once again NRK stretches Slow TV to something new, pushing broadcasting boundaries. The project manager is again Thomas Hellum, who has been at the centre of slow television, both by train and boat so far. And now by hiking.

Exactly where it will go, will first be determined after NRK has "tested" and seen where coverage is and where live TV can be broadcast. Understating the task currently in preproduction, "To transmit directly, minute by minute, from mountain areas where barely mobile coverage is mildly challenging" points out Hellum.

Lars Monsen is keen on the fact that very many may want to go hiking with him and NRK. Could it be we could have a long time of struggling to light a fire with damp kindling? "In a regular TV show, maybe we only show five seconds when I light up a fire. Here we can risk it takes an hour... People will understand more", Monsen says.

Everything must be carried, too. While the previous Slow TV broadcasts have meant long journeys and far distances, everything becomes different when moving on foot and the equipment must be worn.

"On the map, our travels are only a few small lines this summer. Nevertheless, we will showcase unique mountain and hiking areas. We Norwegians love the walking culture in the mountains, and we are looking forward to displaying the Norwegian Mountain World as live broadcast television", says NRK Project Manager Thomas Hellum.

So, if wet kindling and televised walking in the rain doesn't dampen your spirits, brace yourselves for several weeks of Walking with Slow TV this summer.

Many thanks to livnomes on Instagram for bringing this Slow TV project to The Slow TV Blog's attention.