Leeuwarden opens its doors on Saturday 23 November to music and culture lovers alike for the second edition of Explore the North festival. From 1 pm until late, the historic city will be a stage for music, literature, art and more. 

With the festival’s enticing trailer conjouring up imagery of Nordic landscapes, it is not so unexpected to see a number of Scandinavian acts on the bill. These alone are enough to tempt us to explore the northern territories of the country – but there are also a wealth of amazing musicians from a number of nations performing, including a bunch of fantastic home-grown talent.

This is an intimate festival that invites intrepid travellers to gather together and experience some fine performances, talks and other intriguing activities – if you fancy an aural journey with parabolic microphone to do some live sampling with musician and sound artist Dennis van Tilburg, you can sign up here. A number of the city’s rather magnificent buildings will play host to the acts as venues for the day, the full timetable for which can be found in the downloadable programme here.

We are pleased to share below some videos of the Nordic musical acts appearing at the festival who we have previously featured on Nordic Vibes, which includes the stupendous sounds of Annasaid (DK), Junip (SE),  Moddi (NO), Rebekka Karijord (NO) and Small Feet (SE). Another Nordic musician playing is Tim Christensen (DK). Visitors to the festival can also attend a talk by the journalist Stine Jensen who wrote and starred in the recent TV series Licht op het Noorden, which sheds light on life and culture in Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland.

So, who’s up for some exploring?! Tickets are 25euro for the day and are available at the festival website.

All the videos below are new to the site; for previous NV items on the artists, click on the individual headings:

Annasaid (DK)

Junip (SE)

Moddi (NO)

Rebekka Karijord (NO)

Small Feet (SE)

Explore the North website