Enjoy Norwegian Christmas at Vesterheim with a Hardanger fiddle concert by Eden Ehm and a fiddle-making demonstration with Karen Rebholz.
Eden Ehm’s interest in folk music and fiddling began during middle school and high school as the principal violinist of the Decorah Nordic Dancer’s Orchestra. Eden began studying the Hardanger fiddle with Andrea Een while at St. Olaf College, the only school in the United States to offer instruction and credit in this instrument. A member of the Hardanger Fiddle Association of America (HFAA), Eden received the Balchen-Hegge Scholarship in 2015 to pursue her fiddle studies. She has been a frequent teacher and mentor at HFAA’s annual workshop.
Karen Rebholz plays, designs, and builds Hardanger fiddles. In 2018, she spent a month at Ole Bull Akademiet in Voss, Norway, learning to improve the sound of her fiddles as part of an American Scandinavian Foundation grant. In addition to learning specific building techniques, she experienced how this form of folk art, and its associated music and dance, are integral to the culture of the community in which they exist.
Presented in connection with the exhibit Hand Me Down the Fiddle: Norwegian Fiddlers, Fiddles, and Fiddle Tunes in the Upper Midwest open at Vesterheim August 15, 2024 – May 18, 2025.
The exhibition and events are 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.
