Hand Me Down the Fiddle
Who were Ole Bull, Ole Hendricks, Johan Arndt Mostad, Thea Arndt Clark, Bill Sherburne, Hans Fykerud, Dagny Andrea Quisling, Ellen Blagen, and Elmo Wick? Find out about these Norwegian and Norwegian-American fiddlers, as well as fiddle makers and tune collectors from Norwegian-American communities in the Upper Midwest through these presentation videos!
These recordings were created during the Hand Me Down the Fiddle exhibition that was open at Vesterheim from August 2024 to May 2025.
The project consultant and guest curator for the exhibition was fiddler and music historian Beth Hoven Rotto, who did a gallery talk of the exhibit. That gallery talk was recorded and the video is available below.
Through the Gallery Talk by guest curator Beth Hoven Rotto, connect with the culture and experiences of exceptional, everyday musicians from the recent past to the present.
Check out the recording of Benedicte Maurseth’s online presentation, Fiddlesisters, about the female fiddlers in the Norwegian Fiddle Tradition from the 1700s to today. Benedicte Maurseth is a well-established and esteemed performer and composer on Norway’s music scene. She has studied with Hardanger fiddle master Knut Hamre for close to 30 years and is an alumna of the Ole Bull Academy.
Watch the presentation on the Svartefela (Black Fiddle) and listen to it being played! The infamous Black Fiddle was made by Søren Fleskåsen, called Reve-Søren, who was a well-known fiddler from Vest-Agder, Norway. He stained it a dark color to disguise the inferior quality of the instrument. It was loaned out to other fiddlers but soon became a fiddle of repute with fights breaking out every time it was played. It disappeared in 1851 only to be found in America and was subsequently restored.
The exhibition and events were supported by a Scandinavian Folk Arts & Cultural Traditions in the Upper Midwest grant from the American Scandinavian Foundation (ASF) and a generous gift to the Vesterheim Annual Fund from Carol Birkland and Tom Woxland, and Peter Dahlen and Mary S. Carlsen.
Thank you to Beth Hoven Rotto for her contributions and guest curatorship of this exhibit and its events.