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Our Instructors

Our Schedule (all times US Central)

Our Program

Our teachers and Zoom administrators are knowledgeable about the Zoom teaching environment, and they work closely together to ensure the best possible learning experience. 

Hardingfele classes. All students are provided in advance with videos of the teachers performing the tunes they will teach. This enables students to become familiar with the tunes and the teachers' way of playing them before attempting to learn the intricate details of traditional Hardanger fiddle playing.

Dance classes. Arnhild Brennesvik and Even Ellegaard Westeng, with the delightful fiddling of Tone Anne Tveiten, will take us beyond the basics and share with us some secrets for creating a beautiful springar dance from Telemark.

Hunting for Hardangers: An Interview with Alex Carroll of Oslo Hardanger Fiddles. Alex Carroll, founder of the new Oslo, Norway-based webstore "Oslo Hardanger FIddles, " in conversation with Anne Lederman, will discuss the difficulties and the process of finding and buying Hardanger fiddles both within Norway and Internationally. They will touch on the active makers in Norway, considerations when buying older instruments vs newer ones, international shipping issues, sources of instruments etc., and how his new enterprise works. 

Luthier's Corner: The Hildahl Fiddle, with Bud Larsen and apprentices. Luthier Bud Larsen and his apprentices will present the historic Hildahl Hardanger fiddle, as well as share updates from the luthier apprenticeship program in Fargo-Moorhead, discussing mentoring and teaching as well as showing off in-progress and completed fiddles.

Samspel Session. Samspel ("group playing") is a foundational skill that we always teach at our workshops. Fiddlers will be provided in advance with the sheet music for the tunes to be performed, selected from the HFAA's "Samspel Tune Book" and ranging through different levels of difficulty. The session will be led by a staff member while participants follow along on mute.

"Lightning Round". A tradition at the HFAA's workshops, a "lightning round" is a session where fiddlers or other instrumentalists/vocalists sign up to perform one tune each in quick succession. This allows students to practice their performance skills in a low-stakes, supportive environment.

Dance Party! A program of live music for dancing featuring HFAA member musicians.

All sessions will be held on Zoom (https://zoom.us/).

More Information about our Instructors

Arne Anderdal (Intermediate/Advanced hardingfele) specializes in the Hardanger fiddle music of two different regional traditions: the music of Hallingdal, the valley where he was born, and the music of Voss in western Norway where he now lives. Arne is an archivist and music instructor at the Ole Bull Academy in Voss, Norway, an institution which offers a 4-year Bachelor of Arts program in traditional music performance. As a practicing and performing artist on the Hardanger fiddle, Arne works mostly with music for dance. He is musical director of the Voss Spelemannslag.

Mira Dickey (Beginning/Intermediate hardingfele) is a fiddler and artist from Austin, Texas. She studied classical violin as a child, but as an adult she became fascinated by the study of traditional music: first exploring American, Irish, Scottish and Canadian music, and finally discovering her passion for Scandinavian music, especially the Hardanger fiddle. She has experience performing regularly in a Scandinavian fiddle duo as well as a folk band playing Northern styles of traditional music, while also performing solo on Hardanger fiddle for both listening concerts and folk dances. Her passion for hardingfele music even inspired her to spend a year in Norway studying traditional folk music at the University of South-Eastern Norway. She has taught and performed on the hardingfele several times at the Hardanger Fiddle Association of America summer workshops, and more recently at the Salt Lake Scandinavian Music and Dance group's Fall Fest, as well as teaching private lessons online.

Arnhild Brennesvik (Dance), has been dancing the traditional dances of Telemark and Numedal since childhood. Her teachers for Telemark dance have been her mother--Karin Brennesvik, as well as Robert Dokken, Arvid Gullbring, Arne Pladsen and many more. Her teacher for Numedal dance was Hellik Dokka from Numedal/Kongsberg. Last summer Arnhild and her dance partner, Eivind Bakken, won the Landskappleik (annual national competition) for the third time dancing numedalsgangar. They have also won second and third place several times. Arnhild is well-known for her teaching of the dances of Telemark and Numedal in Norway and the US and at festivals around Europe. In everyday life Arnhild is a psychiatric nurse, working mainly with teens.

Even Ellegaard Westeng (Dance) started dancing when he was about 10 years old. He says: "At first I just wanted to dance halling, because I thought the tricks were really cool, but I quickly also fell in love with the other Norwegian folk dances and the music. When I was 14 years old I traveled abroad to dance for the first time, together with Arnhild Brennesvik, at Norsk Høstfest in North Dakota. Since then, I have both instructed and performed folk dance a lot, both in Norway and other countries. In 2020 I finished a bachelor’s degree in folk music at the University of South-Eastern Norway at Rauland, and last year I took second place in the halling dance competition at the Landskappleik.” In addition to dancing, Even also plays Hardanger fiddle and munnharpe (jaw harp).

Tone Anne Tveiten (Dance class fiddler), from Gransherad in Telemark, started playing hardingfele at the Summer Course for Ungfolk in 2008, and spent a year studying folk music at the University of South-Eastern Norway in Rauland in 2018. She has apprenticed with Torunn Raftevold Rue and Lars-Ingar Meyer Fjeld, among others. Nowadays, Tone Anne works as a nurse, and is active in the folk music scene in Telemark playing hardingfele and dancing folk dance.

Robert (Bud) Larsen of Brainerd, MN made his first violin as a teenager, while working as an apprentice with Gunnar G. Helland of Fargo ND, a member of the famed Helland family of luthiers. Now eighty years old, Bud Larsen has made over forty Hardanger fiddles and has numerous apprentices of his own. As a founding member of the Fargo Spelemannslag, Larsen has shared his knowledge of Norway's national instrument with countless musicians and luthiers.

Alex Carroll was born in North Carolina and holds dual citizenship in the Netherlands. After living many years in the heart of Europe, Alex and his spouse relocated to Norway in early 2020 so that they could explore the stunning Norwegian landscapes together. An avid listener of Scandinavian folk music, he seized the opportunity to learn to play Norwegian folk music almost as soon as he was settled. After a lifetime of playing the cello, he picked up the violin (or the "normal fiddle" as it is often called in Norway) and started fiddling in the tradition from Østerdalen. He is currently a member of Østerdølenes Spellmannslag in Oslo. After some time, Alex became curious about the Hardanger fiddle and its musical traditions and began looking for an instrument. To his surprise, the search for a Hardanger fiddle was harder than he imagined it would be--even in Norway. This experience gave birth to the idea of starting Oslo Hardanger Fiddles, with the aim of serving Hardanger fiddle players' needs, both in Norway and abroad. He currently resides on the outskirts of Oslo, nestled on the edge of the beautiful Nordmarka forest, where he spends much of his time when not fiddling.