Anne Hytta

"The rich, rasping, intense timbre of the Hardanger Fiddle has always attracted me.

The repertoire of the Hardanger Fiddle, as I have learned to play it, has strictly defined structures. However, to a certain extent at minimalist level you are free to vary motifs and to add colour through ornamentation, and I think it these elements that have made me feel that playing airs is a natural mode of musical expression for me."



Anne Hytta (born 1974) is a performer of the Hardanger Fiddle, a special fiddle with sympathetic strings and its own repertoire of traditional tunes. Through her work with musicians from other Folk Music Traditions and from involvement in Medieval Music Ensembles she has developed her own style that enables her to use elements from the hardanger violin playing style in new constellations, and she is thus a sought-after musician for musical projects involving creative work, improvisation and composing.



Her main focus in addition to her solo work includes the trio SLAGR. They founded in 2003, and released their debut album Solaris in 2007. She has composed and performed two commission concerts with SLAGR, and parts of the last commission work will be represented on their next album to be released on the highly reputed German label Ozella Music February 2011. SLAGR has ensemble grants from Culture Council Norway.



In 2006, 2007 and 2009 Anne Hytta received the Government Grants for younger artists.



October 2010 she is releasing the album Soli (solos) with Dei Beste Damene, a trio of hardanger fiddlers.



Her solo album “dag, kveld, natt” (”day, evening, night”) is an album containing three landscapes of sonorous sounds from the Hardanger violin. The bright light – day, the shadows – evening, and the dark – night, is represented on the record through three different ways of tuning the fiddle, which illuminate different harmonies and sounds. She received the Norwegian Folk Music Award for best solo album in 2006.



Anne writes and performs music with the trio Slagr . In addition to herself, Sigrun Eng plays the cello and Amund Sjølie Sveen plays vibraphone. Slagr released their Debut Album "Solaris" November 2007 to great reviews.



She is also a member of SYM with French nyckelharpist Eléonore Billy and English nyckelharpist Clare Salaman. They all compose music for the trio, and released their album "Symbiosis" spring 2008.