In English

Gabriel Fliflet is a Norwegian musician and composer. Accordion is his main instrument. He grew up in a fertile musical environment, sung to in Swedish by his Finnish mother and, as often as not, in German or Hungarian by his polyglot Norwegian father. Not surprising, then, that he has made a career of frolicking in various folk traditions, Norwegian and foreign.

Musician:

Fliflet’s various musical projects show the range of his curiosity. For over thirty years he explored Norwegian old-time dance music with the group Rimfakse. He has toured with Shetland musicians, including the legendary Willie Hunter and Willie Johnson. He has worked with musicians from Serbia, Lapland, Italy and Finland, explored Yiddish and Gypsy traditions - not to mention different musical projects with many of Norway´s most outstanding traditional folk and jazz musicians.

Most well-known is his partnership with drummer Ole Hamre in the enigmatic duo Fliflet/Hamre. They have created a style all their own – they call it Bergen music from the world – and have worked with artists from a wide spectrum of music. Often, they perform together with the brilliant saxophone player Rolf-Erik Nystrøm.

Gabriel has worked with several of Norway´s best traditional folk musicians, such as Berit Opheim, Kirsten Bråten berg, Gjermund Larsen, Benedicte Maurseth and Susanne Lundeng. He has also cooperated with musicians from other genres, such as the blues guitarist Knut Reiersrud and jazz trumpeter Arve Henriksen.

In the quartet Gabriels Novgorod, he explores ethnic popular music from Finland, Sweden and other countries around The Baltic Sea.

Songs and fiddle tunes from the coasts of The North Sea is the theme of the trio Henderson, Fliflet & Burgess. Kevin Henderson is a world class, traditional fiddler from Shetland, Richard Burgess a superb English folk singer and musician.

Since 1999 he has been musical host and organiser of Norway’s maybe foremost folk club, Columbi Egg in Bergen.

Composer:

Gabriel Fliflet has made several commissioned works. Among those are: Edvards lykkelige dag (ordered by Edvard Grieg Museum Troldhaugen) and Åresong (Bergen International Festival) with new texts by the Norwegian playwright and Nobel laureate Jon Fosse. In Valseria, he praised the Waltz and the 3/4 beat, and in Rose, Gabriel made new melodies to texts by Robert Burns, translated into Norwegian by Johannes Gjerdåker. In Gabriel Fliflet´s music, there are resonances from both Norwegian and other European musical traditions. The cooperation between the author Kjartan Fløgstad and Gabriel has resulted in several songs and “I lys loge”, a work commissioned by the Vossa Jazz festival (2024).

CONTACT:‍ ‍
gabriel.fliflet (“at”) gmail.com tel. + 47 4731 7451