Dialogue

• In the search for modernity, we need to listen to history; what is new builds on the experience gained from earlier perceptions or constructions.
• Both in earlier times and nowadays, in Norway as well, cultural differences have precipitated misunderstandings, but also development and changes of direction.
• In order to make sense of the expression “Northern novelty and prospects”, we need to seek contact beyond national boundaries.
• Communication and contact across both physical and cultural boundaries is becoming more and more important; recognizing and understanding the past will improve our plans for the future.
• The relationship between human beings and nature is dialectical, and we are starting to understand the global perspective in this context.

That’s why dialogue will remain central in the future!

• In music, communication is of crucial importance.
• Using tried and tested means the composer speaks to the performer, the conductor to the orchestra, the musicians with one another and, not least, the performers to their public.
• Music is a universal language, intelligible to all, regardless of geography, culture, race or religion.
• Music communicates without the need for many of the cultural filters required in other forms of culture. It is therefore an unusually good means of creating a good dialogue.

However, nothing is absolute – not even in music, and certainly not in the way it is used. For music can, like so many other things, be used to create distance, to pigeon-hole some people and shut out others from the cultural community.

In choosing the theme of “Dialogue” for Nordlysfestivalen 2009, we want to use the festival to strengthen an understanding of how music may be used constructively to promote dialogue at every level. In this way, music will form a good northern regional policy, build bridges between cultures, provide the means for different generations to meet and serve as an implement to open people’s eyes to historical values, as well as in the present and what is sought in the future.