Music from Norway: Just How Important Is It, Really?

Culture needs to stop being a dirty word, and the only way to make that happen is through gradual exposure, beginning at an early age and including education. If anything, Norway should be viewed as an example of how a long-term commitment to culture has not only yielded great fruit in the sheer numbers of exceptional musicians that have emerged over the past forty years, but in the life of the average Norwegian, who clearly supports these musicians through purchasing recordings and supporting live performances. If a city the size of Oslo can support its large number of live venues—a few examples ranging from the tiny but wonderfully funky MONO and 300-seater jazz club, Nasjonal Jazzscene Victoria, to the larger Rockefeller and, of course, Oslo Operahuset—is there any reason why a city, for example, the size of Ottawa, Canada cannot? The answer is complex, but in a nutshell: no, there is absolutely no reason. But in order to do so, the city would have to examine what drives the inhabitants of a city like Oslo to go out and support live music and theatre, art exhibitions and other cultural events.

It may not be perfect, but it's an exceptionally compelling model. Coming from Ottawa, Canada, a city twice the size of Oslo whose one and only jazz club went belly up in 2012, it seems that the idea of looking to Norway as a model of how arts should be funded and presented, and how arts can be made once again popular—even if there's less money per capita to go around—is an admirable objective, and one that should be pursued sooner rather than later. Norway has proven the value of making the broadest range of culture a part of its nation's overall social tapestry—and that is, in many ways, a far more important raison d'être for arts funding than its direct impact on the artists it supports.

Photo Credit
All Photos: John Kelman

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