ARTISTS 2025
Due to change of ticket system the ticket sale will be postponed from medio January to medio February.

Ukrainian Anna Fedorova is the latest generation in a long line of pianists from this now war-torn country. Ukraine counts some of the biggest names in this field, such as Svjatoslav Richter, Vladimir Horowitz and Emil Gilels. Already on March 6, 2022 - two weeks after the outbreak of war - Fedorova held a charity concert for war victims. Here she raised over one million kroner, and has later continued with such concerts. She has also been a regular soloist with the Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra, an orchestra that was formed immediately after the start of the war. In September 2022, together with bassist Nicholas Schwartz, she started a music education in The Hague - Davidsbündler Foundation - an offer primarily for Ukrainian music students who had fled to the Netherlands. When we asked her to participate in an extra concert during this year's festival for refugees living in the municipality of Flakstad, she agreed without hesitation. - Anna, you have been giving charity concerts for Ukraina ever since the war started three years ago, and you even started a music education in Hague in 2022. Tell us about this? Indeed once the big scale war broke out I was very active in trying to raise funds and support Ukrainian people in various ways. Just one week after the start of the war together with a few other musicians in the Netherlands we organised two big benefit concerts which took place in the same day - in The big hall of  Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and in Amare hall in the The Hague. Just those two concert raised over 160.000 euros and led to more similar activities. I think in 2022 I performed in over 50 benefit concerts for Ukraine which also included a big tour of 13 concerts in the USA and Europe which among others included performances  at BBC Proms and Edinburgh festival with Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra - initiative organised by Metropolitan Opera. The same year together with my husband Nicholas Schwartz (member of Concertgebouw orchestra in Amsterdam) and my parents Tatiana Abaieva and Borys Fedorov who were leading pianists and piano professors in Ukraine  we started an academy in The Hague called Davidsbündler academy. The goal of the academy to offer focused high level musical education in inspiring, cozy and motivating environment  to young musicians while helping them reach their highest potential also helping with the first steps of their careers. Many of Ukrainian young musicians (including many of my parents’ students) came to the Netherlands at the beginning of the war and from the start we were focusing our energy on building up the scholarship fund to be able to support young talents with a focus on helping talented young Ukrainians to continue their musical education and growth in the safe environment away from the war. - In our festival you will play all four of Chopins Ballads. This must be a big challenge, both technically and musically? Chopin and his music has always been very special for me. Since childhood the music of Chopin have been taking a major place in my repertoire and his 4 Ballades are some of my most favourite compositions by Frederic Chopin. Apart of being incredibly beautiful and emotionally powerful - all of the ballades have a heroic narrative element, a feeling of a medieval legend being told. Each Ballade holds its own unique world, unique story. The emotional intensity is extremely high, and for me in a way this leads to the main difficulty as a performer. It’s easy to get literally consumed by the forces of nature generated by the music, just as one can loose control while smitten by a giant wave. One has to find the right balance while delivering maximum emotional and musical impact and living through every intonation not to loose  the oversight of the musical story as a whole from a distance. - What is it with Chopins music that’s fascinates nearly all pianists? Chopin was an incredible Melodist. The beauty of his music is always combined with disarming sincerity and certain sadness and nostalgia. At the same time even in the most lyrical compositions by Chopin one can feel a strong inner power, a noble fighting spirit though at times vulnerable. Also since the war in Ukraine I felt as I could understand more deeper Chopin’s emotions, something you can’t understand as fully until actually experiencing it. He had to flee Poland and lived the rest of his life abroad without being able  to return  - something my own family is now going through as well as so many people I know.  - If there is something you would like to say to our audience and followers, please feel free to do that! I’m very excited to come to Lofoten! I’ve always loved Norway, its unique majestic beauty of nature and kind and gracious people. I can’t wait to share the music with you all and to be performing alongside with other amazing artists!

Arvid Engegård is an institution in Norwegian music life. His quartet - the Engegårdquartette, our house band - celebrates 20 years next year. The quartet tours extensively throughout Norway and abroad. The discography counts 20 releases. He regularly conducts all the country's orchestras. With his trio of accordion and bass, he plays everything from classical pearls to old dance and tours the country. He is also the artistic director of the Engegård Quartet's own festival 1,2,3, where they focus on one composer over the course of a weekend. He also watches as many games as he can with the football team from his hometown, Bodø-Glimt.

With his roots from Værøy, Joachim Carr from Bergen is 1/8 part Lofoten! He also enjoys this spectacular region and participated in the festival for the first time already in 2014. Then as winner of the Grieg competition in 2012. He then also chose Stamsund church for his solo album with music by, among others, Liszt, Bach/ Busono and the Messiah. With us, he plays nothing less than Beethoven's last sonata, op. 111. Furthermore, there will be a French suite by Bach. He will also collaborate with the festival's two Norwegian folk musicians. And not least, there will be spectacular events in John Adams Halleluja Junction with Marc-André Hamelin!

Dénes Varjon is next to Sir Andras Schiff Hungary's most famous pianist. He visited the festival in Lofoten for the first time in 2015, and in 2022 was artistic director of our piano edition. He was back already in 2023, and in 2025 will perform Elgar's piano quintet with the Engegård Quartet, Chopin's Fantasy in F minor, op. 49 and Beethoven's sonata in E major, opus 109. As always, there will also be music by Bartok.

Marc-André Hamelin is - according to the New York Times - a pianist with almost superhuman technical skill. But for all musicians, technique is only the necessary tool for interpreting and performing music. And Hamelin has used his technical skills on large parts of the repertoire of the most famous classics, but he has also made a name for himself on the music of lesser-known composers. In his discography we therefore find names such as John Tower, Samuel Feinberg, Nicolai Medtner, Charles Alkin and Nicolai Kapustin. The latter was strongly influenced by jazz. - My father was a good amateur pianist, and he listened to recordings of the great and famous composers a lot. But not baroque music. He loved Liszt and bought everything he could get his hands on. And he was also very keen on finding important music that was less mainstream and often forgotten. We explored this together, and when he had ordered sheet music by rather obscure composers, I couldn't wait for them to arrive. I started playing when I was five. - Are there any lesser-known composers you would like to highlight today? Yes, Bach's son Carl Phillip Emanuel. Everything in Mozart is well-proportioned. Haydn could offer the unexpected, but C.P.E. Bach tried to break all the rules that existed. I'm just so impressed by his courage at this point in music history. - Did you meet expectations early on to perform such repertoire? - I started recording albums after winning the Carnegie Hall International Music Competition in 1985, and part of the prize was a recording. This had to be American music. The next album also had to contain new music. And later on I've basically had carte blanche from my company Hyperion. It's been a bit like playing in the sandbox instead of doing homework. The most extreme thing I've done is a recording of the Russian composer Nicolai Roslavets. No one else had done this before, and it took me an infinity of work. - In Lofoten you will perform well-known works by Beethoven and Rachmaninov, but also your own, new piano quintet. How important is composing to you? - It is important in many ways, not least because I think I understand other composers better. And it has made me realise that music can never be interpreted according to a formula. I see this clearly since I play my own music differently from time to time. This is what is so fascinating. A composer who can be interpreted very differently is Grieg. He could be very surprised by other people's interpretations, but usually liked it.

Berit Opheim is one of Norway's foremost singers with folk music as her most important area. In 2023, she was awarded the Statens Kunstnerstipend for 10 years, and in the same year nominated for the Nordic Council's Music Prize. In 2023 she was also awarded the Hilmar Prize, and in 2024 she received the Folk Music Prize from the Norwegian Center for Folk Music and Folk Dance. Opheim has a very varied palette of musical expressions, and has performed both medieval music, early baroque and contemporary music. She has premiered many works in various genres. She has taught at the Grieg Academy, the Norwegian Academy of Music, the Rauland Academy and several other places, and collaborated with many of Norway's leading performers, ensembles and orchestras. Opheim has participated in more than 50 recordings, several of them solo. In Lofoten, she focuses on folk music.

Per Anders Buen Garnås started playing the harding fiddle already at the age of 6, inspired by his uncles Hauk and Knut. He has apprenticed with players in various traditions, but especially from Telemark. Today he is among Norway's most respected folk musicians, and he has won the Landskappleiken a total of 6 times, most recently in 2024. He participates in several recordings, and for his solo albums he has won the Folke-Larmprisen twice. In Lofoten, he will play traditional Harding fiddle tunes, and not least the originals of several of Grieg's arrangements of these in his op. 72. This in a concert where Joachim Carr plays the same arrangements.