To complement the exhibition “Harriet Backer, la musique des couleurs”, the Musée d’Orsay is organizing a multi-disciplinary art festival to honor Norway and its women artists, from November 21 to 28, 2024.
The Musée d’Orsay takes us on a journey through Harriet Backer’s Norway: landscapes, scenes of daily life and the rural world are revealed in the painter’s canvases with dabs of color. This journey continues from November 21 to 28, 2024, with a multidisciplinary arts festival showcasing Norwegian artists and culture.
The Norwegian Women on Stage festival takes us into the world of Norwegian art: dance, song, performance, literature, encounters… In every field, artists past and present play between tradition and modernity, offering a richly varied portrait of Norway. The Musée d’Orsay pays particular tribute to women artists from the “land of the midnight sun”.
Harriet Backer, the music of colors: the Musée d’Orsay’s poetic exhibition unveiled
The Musée d’Orsay invites us to meet Harriet Backer, the famous Norwegian painter, in a gentle, poetic exhibition on view from September 24, 2024 to January 12, 2025. [Read more]
Harriet Backer, the music of colors: the Musée d’Orsay’s poetic exhibition unveiledSo, from November 21 to 28, 2024, art lovers and frequent travelers will gather at the Musée d’Orsay, to enjoy this Norwegian festival. Discover the detailed program and book your ticket now!
The Norwegian Stage Festival program:
- Systerspel – Benedicte Maurseth
Thursday, November 21 and Thursday, November 28, 2024 – 8pm – Auditorium
Systerspel (Our Sisters’ Music) is a poetic and sensitive concert based on Benedicte Maurseth’s book “Systerspel”, which tells the story of her country’s female fiddlers who traversed Norway’s spectacular landscapes from the 18th to the early 20th century. Norwegian fiddler (fiddle Hardanger) and composer Benedicte Maurseth takes us on a journey to meet these proud, artistically and financially independent women fiddlers, who traveled from village to village playing for festivals and weddings.
Duration: 1h30
From €8 to €18 - Skaut
Friday, November 22 – 8pm and Saturday, November 23, 2024 – 7pm – Auditorium
Skaut is the fabric that covers Norwegian women’s hair. Between tradition and emancipation, hair tied or untied, the Skaut dancers blend contemporary dance with traditional Norwegian folk dance. An intense, wild performance by choreographer Hallgrim Hansegård.
Running time: 1h20
From €8 to €26 - Norwegian tales
Saturday, November 23, 2024, 11:00am – 5:30pm – Salle des fêtes
Immerse yourself in the spellbinding world of Norwegian tales and legends! Discover evil mountain beings, protective forest spirits and magical Viking symbols. Students from the Cours Florent give life and voice to these ancestral tales in French, English and Norwegian in the Salle des fêtes, transformed into an imaginary cabin for a magical day.
Free on presentation of museum admission
Subject to availability - Chœur dans la nef
Saturday November 23, 2024, 3pm – 4pm – 5pm – Nave of the Musée
In the exceptional setting of the nave of the Musée d’Orsay, discover the Choral Pieces by Agathe Backer Grøndahl (1847-1907), a central figure on the Norwegian music scene at the end of the 19th century and sister of Harriet Backer. A pupil of Hanns von Bulow (1830-1894) and Franz Liszt (1811-1886), she composed some 400 pieces and enjoyed a major international career as a pianist until 1903.
Free with museum admission - Norwegian ball
Sunday, November 24, 2024 – from 2pm – Salle des fêtes
At the heart of Norwegian culture lies a strong tradition of folk music, which, combined with dances such as halling, springar and pols, mark high points of sociability and sharing. Guided by Signe Dorthea Krohn Gjessing, join in the dancing at a grand Norwegian ball, to the sound of folk fiddles by the duo Odde & Holmen. Warm atmosphere guaranteed!
Free upon presentation of museum admission
Subject to availability. - Concert – Lydia Hoen-Tjore, Magnus Ingemund Kjelstad, Christian Grøvlen
Tuesday, November 26, 2024 – 12:30 pm – Auditorium
Accompanied by soprano Lydia Hoen-Tjore and baritone Magnus Ingemund Kjelstad, pianist Christian Grøvlen will explore the repertoire of Agathe Backer Grøndahl (1847-1907), sister of Harriet Backer and friend of the great composer Edvard Grieg (1843-1907), who is also featured on the program.
Duration: 1h
From €8 to €18 - Screenings – Around Harriet Backer
Continuous, Thursday November 21 to Thursday November 28, 2024
Studio 4.1
Harriet Backer’s world is populated by women: companions, friends, neighbors, members of her family or community…Artist Sandra Binion has immersed herself in Harriet Backer’s light (10 min.) and reconstructed 17 of her paintings with her camera. And writer/director Sophie Caron presents a new episode in her series Petites histoires de grandes artistes (co-produced by AWARE Archives of Women Artists, Research & Exhibitions, the Norwegian Embassy in Paris and the Musée d’Orsay): an animated video (6 min.) in which children aged 7 and up discover the life and work of Harriet Backer.
Free with museum admission
Subject to availability. - Salon littéraire éphémère
Saturday November 23 and Sunday November 24
Fumoir
Discover the best of Norwegian literature in the former smoking room of the Hôtel d’Orsay, transformed for the occasion into an ephemeral literary salon. Short interviews with Didier Blonde, Marta Breen, Gabriel Dufay, Kathrin Nedrejord and Marianne Ségol-Samoy introduce you to the literature of yesterday and today. A reading corner is available, with a selection of books reflecting Norwegian creativity in all its diversity. An open window on ecology, minorities, the place of women, crafts and design.- Saturday, November 23, 2024
12pm: Norwegian design today. Nature, beauty and ecology – Meeting with Cecilie Molvær Jørgensen, design consultant (DOGA, Design & Architecture in Norway)
2pm: The place of women in the world – Meeting with Marta Breen, author of graphic novels
3pm: Nobel Prizes in Literature in Norway – Meeting with Gabriel Dufay, actor and director (Compagnie Incandescence) and Marianne Ségol-Samoy, translator
16h: Sami minorities in literature – Meeting with author Katherine Nedrejord and Marianne Ségol-Samoy, translator - Sunday, November 24, 2024
3pm: Oslo, from memory – Meeting with writer Didier Blonde Free on presentation of museum admission card
- Saturday, November 23, 2024
- Conference – Les Nordiques à Paris
Sunday, November 24, 2024 – 4pm
Auditorium
A student of Léon Bonnat, Harriet Backer came to Paris to train with a renowned master and consider a professional career. What was the place of women artists in Parisian Nordic circles, and how was their work received, both in France and in their respective countries? A conference to understand the importance of Paris in the careers of Nordic women artists of this period.
Free with museum admission
Subject to availability. - Musical tour of the exhibition “Harriet Backer (1845-1932). The music of colors”.
Saturday, November 23, 2024 – 2:00 pm and 3:30 pm
Exhibition rooms
A musical stroll, accompanied by the violin duo Odde & Holmen, takes us on a selection of works to explore the “music of colors” by Norwegian artist Harriet Backer.
Free on presentation of museum admission
Subject to availability
Duration: 1h
An exciting journey into culture!
