music

(Post 3 of 6) Meet Espen Rotevatn – conductor, music teacher, former church organist and the leader of the newly established Green Party on Svalbard. He’s wearing a few layers because the show took place in an abandoned and unheated mine building that you can see from everywhere in town. Espen opposes mining, but he…

(Post 4 of 6) Soloists get to wear the hard hats. This is Oddmund Rønning, head of the Liberal Democrats. See the crowd in the next post.

(Post 5 of 6) It was a packed house at the concert. The abandoned coal packing hub was chilly, but everyone here has the clothes for it. Plus, the choir kept us laughing throughout, which warms the body and the soul.”It’s a magical building,” said Sveinung Lystrup, the show’s MC, “and it just stands here’…

(Post 6 of 6) The choir’s full story came out in the pub after the show. Between spontaneous bouts of singing, we talked to the head of the trade union, an architect, leaders of three political parties, a teacher, the priest, several staff from the mining company and others. Coal mining is controversial, so why…