Photos: Stian Andersen et Vanessa Heins

Is there a common sensibility among women artists with northern origins? With the help of our colleague and friend Jeremy Spellazon, PAN M 360 thought it appropriate to bring together two writers, composers, and performers with Arctic origins, loved and recognized south of the Arctic Circle. The great-grandmother of Ane Brunvall, better known by the diminutive Ane Brun (pronounced An-ha Broon), came from the Sami people living in the Arctic regions of Scandinavia. Elisapie, for her part, is a full-fledged Inuit and curious to talk to her Norwegian interlocutor, who has lived two decades in Sweden and is considering leaving Stockholm to settle in Oslo, where her husband lives.

Ane Brun and Elisapie courteously accepted our proposal, the other pretext being the imminent release of two albums of new songs by Ane Brun, from the same creative cycle: After the Great Storm and Ow Beauty Holds the Hands of Sorrow, on the Balloon Ranger label.

PAN M 360: Many thanks to you ladies for having accepted this invitation! The first question is at the heart of this encounter: is there a common sensibility for artists from the far north?

Elisapie: Yes, I think so! Having been in Kautokaino, in the northern part of Norway, I felt strange at that time because I discovered the humour of the Sami people, the same humour as my people in Nunavik. Oh my goodness, that was so close! I haven’t been there for performing, but for a documentary film. My biggest, biggest regret is not having worked hard enough to make things happen in the northern countries. But next time! 

Ane Brun: What was the documentary about ?

Elisapie: It was a film on the polar-circle peoples, I could go  to Alaska, Siberia, Greenland, Norway, and northern Canada. In Norway, I could eat reindeer recipes, I loved it!  It was an amazing experience. And you, Ane, are you from the northern part of Norway?

Ane Brun: No. I grew up in Molde, halfway between the south and the north of Norway, but my mom’s family is from the north – an hour driving from Tromsø. Her grandmother was Sami, so we have a straight line. 

PAN M 360: More precisely, what do Sami people have in common with Inuit people in Nunavik?

Elisapie: The first thing I really felt is the very calming rhythm. This is a different territory from the Sami territory,  but the presence of the people is quite similar. I mean people being in the moment. And also when you live something with Sami people and a friendship is possible, it’s not halfway. Something is marked forever. People open up very quickly. Inuit people experience the same openness in my Indigenous community. Once you are in their world and environment, it is open. So that is really what I felt in Norway, it was family.

Ane Brun: It’s nice! We Norwegians don’t know the Sami language. There is still a barrier, we don’t get a chance to really step into the atmosphere that exists up there.  By the way, The Sami language is quite present in the North, there is a Sami presence in the government, there is Sami language on the TV, but is is always subtitled .  

Elisapie: It’s the same here in Canada. Inuktitut is one of the most difficult languages to learn.  You know, I thought  there would be common roots in our two languages, but no. The Sami langage is totally different from Inuktitut.

Ane Brun: Personally, I have never been in the Sami culture, even if my great-grandmother was Sami. Otherwise, my mother tried to rediscover this culture, she tried to connect with relatives and started digging in our family history. She discovered that when her grandmother was alive, it was quite difficult to be a Sami during her life, there was a lot of discrimination. You know the singer Mari Boine? Even for her generation, it was really hard. Until recently, Sami people were forced to speak Norwegian, to go to Norweigian school, there were religious expectations and cultural assimilation. In Sweden and Norway, there’s a really sad story about how Indigenous people were treated. That changed not a long time ago, I can imagine that some of my mom’s ancestors didn’t want to live as Sami people because it was really hard, but my mom wanted to rediscover, she reconnected with relatives and knew more about the tribe where we come from. Later, people from my generation learned about this inequality, it’s quite recent. There was a great Swedish movie called Sami Blood that also had an important impact on our awareness. And I have myself had a chance to sing with Mari Boine and also with Sofia Jannok, another Sami artist – Sofia had permission from Bon Iver to translate some of his songs into the Sami language, so she made an EP of Bon Iver songs, and I got to sing in Sami with her. With Mari Boine as well, we wrote a song together for a TV show where Scandinavian artists were coupled with Sami artists. Then we met for three days to write the song and I got to know the amazing Mari Boine better. It became a beautiful song, she used the joik singing. 

Elisapie: I also met Mari Boine, I opened for her in Belgium. She is magical, her presence is almost scary!

PAN M 360: How do each of you identify the Northern aspects of your craft?

Elisapie: I think it is unconscious but… If I write a song, I can say that I have to look outside, I must have window to see the sky. Where I am from,  there are no trees and a lot of horizon. I left the North when I was 23, it’s still very present in my mind. Life is hard in my community, the suicide rate is high, people try to get their shit together. There is that sense of the North everywhere I go and I am. Even now in Montreal, I’m getting to know myself in a stronger way. And I think my roots are coming back to me a lot more. I have three children now, I try to find many things since I’m a mother, and funnily, I feel I’m more Inuk than ever. I don’t live daily the traditions of my people – food, hunting, etc. – but I reflect partly on this life when I write songs. But I try to be in the moment, not intellectualize my work too much while I am creating. I think it’s a Northern way of seeing things.

Ane Brun: For me, inspiration from the North is the nature as well. I connect with nature. You and me, Elisapie, also have the same age in common… because I checked your profile on Wikipedia (haha!).  So we are both in the middle of our lives. I lived in Sweden for 20 years and I’m in the process of moving back in Norway because my partner is in Oslo (where I am actually speaking to you from). Since two or three years, I could connect with my Norwegian roots. Sweden is not far away but it’s different, with a different history, so I have been longing to come back  I feel that I’m connected to those first 20 years of my life, so that is kind of your same feeling of being connected with your roots. So in my songwriting lyrics, I use a lot the nature. I grew up in a very beautiful place with the fjords, the sea, and the mountains. And I know when I write about big emotions, nature is the element that come up, it’s the wind, it’s the water, the ocean, the waves, the mountains, the temperature. I remember having studied the Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg when I was a teenager, they were talking about the importance of nature in his music, and I didn’t get it at that time. Now I look back on my own music and I can see it. It does inspire me, it does influence me that I had the nature so close to me. 

Elisapie: It is awesome the way you talk about nature. I also have a lot of anori – wind, in Inuktitut – in my songs. The wind purifies! The natural elements can be very harsh in the North but also very beautiful and symbolic. It is the same thing for me. I am more in touch and in tune with that in my songwriting. 

Ane Brun: The darkness in the North during the winter is also important. We are about to get in the darkest times of the year, the sun goes down at 3 pm…

PAN M 360: What about artists from the far north being based in big cities?

Elisapie: The North never leaves you in the big cities where we live. North is gorgeous, harsh, tough, spectacular, those very strong elements make you an outsider, in a way, when you live in the south.  At the beginning, when I moved to Montreal, I was so excited to live in a big city, to meet new people, learn new languages, live new experiences, eat new food and on and on. But after a while, you ask yourself questions. Me, what am I, really? I feel I missed out so much by leaving my family, my little cousins, my friends. When it gets dark and Christmas is coming, I start to think about my family… but I’m still such an independent person. So one side of me is longing but the other side of me made a decision of living with that decision. I am happy where I am, but certainly I bring the North with me in my personal life. I am very connected, but I don’t always share it. Songwriting becomes interesting when you open this little bubble, more fragile, more vulnerable, all this ancient culture becomes my guard. For me, the North is a source of inspiration and challenge.

Ane Brun: I was 19 when I moved away from my small town. I didn’t look back until I started longing a few years ago. Nature is also different in Sweden. I’m kind of moving away from the big cities more and more because I have done it for 25 years and I still access it through my work. Oslo is a big city of course, but not as big as Stockholm is. I don’t feel the same way in Oslo. For sure, the things that I grew up with are carried around with me.

Elisapie: The first time I heard your music was a while ago. A friend of mine told me that I must hear your music. And I did, it really dit hit me then. I really love your music, I think you have a very singular voice,  every time you do new music, it’s very strong. I’m just curious to know, who did you listen to? We all have many influences, but you must have one person that made your voice the way it is, that emotion that you have, that you connect to?

Ane Brun: I think there are quite a few! First, my mother is one of them, she is a musician, she sings and plays piano. She’s quite bold in her singing… and growing up like that, I didn’t sing and make my music until my twenties. I didn’t think myself about singing until I turn 20. And didn’t think about my influences until more recently, but now I know that my childhood must  have influence me a lot. I think it’s a big mix of everything. Jazz singers for the phrasing in a different genre, and big stars like Annie Lennox, and also more whispering and obscure singers. So it’s a mix of many things, you know. When I first heard my voice on tape, I liked it. It has developed on its standing point, I tried to expand it all the time, always tried to explore with the microphone, reverb, etc. and  explore what it could do. My sound have been developed by me listening, trying to fine something warm and connecting. 

Elisapie: You made many albums, it’s amazing. Where do you think you are now with your expression? 

Ane Brun: I made two albums released this fall. I really tried to do two different outputs,  the second coming now (November 27) is more relaxed. I tried different things and I observe that my voice is more versatile now. I can do a lot with it, it’s something that I developed through live shows. So the two new albums have been recorded in the same cycle. At first I was going to record one album, and I had 16 songs. The songs on the first album are bigger sounding, you can move to it, lots of beats, more elaborate production. And then in the studio, a few songs didn’t want to be that big. So I let them become small. And then I listen the recordings and I wasn’t happy with three of the “big songs”. I also made them small songs, and I finally had other small songs, enough not to be released at the same time. So I decided to make two albums from the same cycle of music. We released one different song each month during the last months, so we had many singles. Releasing all those singles was an experiment, we didn’t know if it would be too much, and it finally worked out really well. It created a momentum. When the first album came out a few weeks ago, people were still interested. 

Elisapie: I love that you have your own label! I also love the idea of releasing two albums almost at the same time. People are so afraid to try new things!

Ane Brun: Yeah! It’s  a good thing, actually. It’s been very interesting for us as a label, we combined the old way and new way to release my music. 

PAN M 360: Could we have a few more words about the second album, with those songs that wanted to be small ?

Ane Brun: My father passed away. I first shut down and took a break. When I started writing , a moment after, big life questions came up. Midlife, roots, missing my own country, my little town, etc. The lyrics are about griefs, also existentialism, I’ve been kind of my own philosopher, my own Buddha. A lot of of big issues are on these albums. Weirdly enough, this year brought up similar questions as well, so those songs are still relevant, even though they were written last year!  Some journalist said that the most recent album is very empathetic and the previous one is darker. Indeed, the new small songs are more empathetic, those songs didn’t want to be big and roaring, they wanted to be like whispers. That’s what they’re supposed to be for people. It’s quite sad sometimes, but it is also comforting and soft. While the other one can be quite dramatic, it also connected with the same big issues, but with a different output.

Elisapie: It’s almost like you are comforting yourself! 

Ane Brun: As you say! And yes, I tried something different. About yourself, Elisapie, did you sing as a teenager? 

Elisapie: Like you, Ane, I experienced the singer in me later on, which was a good thing. I was around 23. New life for an Inuk girl, identity crisis and more… Of course, I’ve sung since I was a kid, I did it first at the church… I liked it because that was the only place where I could sing! And we didn’t have music school or other institutions to learn music. There was also my amazing uncle’s rock band, so I loved music as a teenager. But I was so shy that it took me a long time tell myself, yeah, I could sing.

Ane Brun: I just watched your Tiny Desk session. Great!

Elisapie: Thank you!  It happened a year ago and my last album was out two years ago. Probably new things will be added this year in my creative agenda. Since spring, I was supposed to write new songs, but I couldn’t – many things happened, especially for Indigenous people in Quebec. A lot of awareness and also tragic things happened in the Indigeno-sphere, in the lights of Black Lives Matters. An event has been very important: an Indigenous woman died in a regional hospital after having been badly treated, in such an horrible manner. But she filmed her bad treatment with her phone before dying, so it shocked everybody here. There is now a movement called Justice for Joyce (her name) and it touches many people, even including children at elementary schools. “Hello Elisapie, I’m singing a song in Inuktitut!”, a kid told me. In my oldest daughter’s high school, teachers spoke about this tragic event and all this ugliness. Also, people get more and more aware of relocation of Indigenous people in the past, and also horrible treatment in residential schools over many years. So all this new awareness is very positive. Hopefully this winter, I will shut up and write new songs in my little bubble, inspired by the wind and other natural elements.

Ane Brun: Maybe you will also be inspired by those events.

Elisapie: Yeah! By some hope and some beauty. There is a lot of beauty that needs to come out.

Ane Brun: Will you write in Inuktitut?

Elisapie: I have a feeling that my Inuktitut is not limited as it was. Our language is very simple, very day tot day. Having a kind of Bob Dylan poetical approach is not a very Inuit way of seeing things, but… I think so much is going on, I find new vocabulary in our language. It will be much more fun for me, playing with words. So yeah, the elastic is looser.

Ane Brun: Maybe you are partly responsible for  this expansion of the language.

Elisapie: Yeah, possibly! People want to hear who we are, much more than, “Okay she’s from the cold.” We are also human beings with feelings, passionate, intense. We are all much more than people from the cold and the white snow. So Ane, let’s keep in touch!

Ane Brun: Yes! I will talk to music festival organizers to invite you to Scandinavia! 

Son of the mythical Fairuz and the equally legendary composer Assi Rahbani, Ziad Rahbani is an outstanding Lebanese artist: director, actor, pianist, very gifted composer… and very atypical. His original mix of classical Arabic music, modern jazz, funk, and contemporary music of Western tradition are still little known outside the Levant. Better late than never? Sooner or later, Ziad’s work will cross all borders. An opportunity to discover it arises at the Festival du monde arabe: for a while, the singer Lara Rain was his favourite performer. Living in Montreal since last winter, she is the ideal herald for Ziad Rahbani’s work to take its place in the city.

PAN M 360: How do you see Ziad’s musical revolutions? What do you think they are? 

Lara Rain: I didn’t really know Ziad growing up. Born in Montreal, I was surrounded by another culture. Even back in Lebanon, we spoke French at home. My mother produced her own plays for children singing in French. My father had his own rock band and sang in English. I didn’t listen to Arabic music at all, which I didn’t like at all. Ziad Rahbani, I only knew him by name. As I grew up, and especially during my years at university, I discovered the impact and influence he had on Lebanese people of all ages. His plays are part of the cultural heritage and his music is in every home. But I knew him as a person first, before I knew his music and his theatre. Then, little by little, he showed me what he was doing… I remember the studio sessions where he made me listen to his records. I used to tell him, “It’s so beautiful!”, and it made him laugh to see me discovering things that everyone already knew. And then, it was through his fans, the people who came to listen to us, the messages I received that I realized how immense his impact is. Ziad is not only a very gifted musician. Ziad is a message, a way of being, a revolution in itself.

PAN M 360: What do you think of this allegedly atypical personality of Ziad? 

Lara Rain: He thought it was strange when I told him that I was not interested in politics. “You watched my interview last night?” And I said, “A little bit, at first… you know, I don’t like politics, Ziad.” “But you sing with me!” He laughed at my (deliberate) political ignorance. I said I liked his music and that was it. The truth is that you can’t really separate Ziad’s music from Ziad’s ideology. It’s one and the same world. As I said before, Ziad is a revolution in himself. I love the way he thinks! Playing in underground bars and on the stage of big festivals is his way of saying that music is for everyone. If he could, he would have played everywhere for free. One day he gave me a bass drum full of CDs. He said, “Give them out, give them to people. Everybody has to have the chance to listen to beautiful songs.” For me, Ziad is the music, the arrangements that give me goosebumps, the lyrics so simple and true. Ziad is the artist who is a bit crazy, hyper-intelligent, unpredictable, (sometimes) stubborn, very sensitive, with his mischievous eyes and a unique sense of humour. A man with the heart of a child.

PAN M 360: How did you get to know Ziad? Were you in Montreal, or Canada, before you came to Beirut? How did you come to work with Ziad?

Lara Rain: I started my career in Montreal. I was carrying my digital piano around in bars and restaurants and singing my own compositions. I came back to Beirut in 2007 to spend Christmas with my family and play a concert. That’s how Ziad Rahbani heard my voice for the first time… he asked me to come to his studio. I played on his piano, we discussed everything and nothing and then he asked me to sing with him in his next concert. And the next one, and the one after that… I never went back to Montreal. That meeting, I think it was mostly a meeting of souls. We come from two different worlds and we are far apart culturally. But he understood me and I understood him. He fell in love with my voice and I fell in love with his music.

PAN M 360: How did Ziad involve you in his creative work?

Lara Rain: I have always been a very shy person, not very sure of myself. Ziad played a very important role in building my self-confidence. In the beginning I sang jazz standards with him in English. Sometimes I didn’t sing them exactly like the original, as jazz was a new style for me at the time. But his remarks were always encouraging. “I like very much how you made the song your own.”

His attitude towards me allowed me to explore my voice without fear. Two years after our debut, he wanted to produce my own songs. We started recording his favourite in his studio. That year, he also produced me in concert. I had never sung my songs in front of so many people before! Unfortunately, we never finished that project, but we started another one! Recording his songs with my voice! Another project that never saw the light of day. And then Ziad wanted me to start singing in Arabic… his mother’s classics. Singing Fairuz… It was a big responsibility for me! But I don’t sing quartertones and I don’t pronounce Arabic like the others. “I don’t want you to sing in quartertones, I want you to sing with your voice, with your own style of singing.” What he did in the end was strengthen my style instead of changing it. It’s making me discover it for myself and teaching me to love it and see it as a strong point, instead of a limitation. How did he involve me in his creative work? Without trying to change me, quite simply. Developing my assets to add to his. And also by asking me, very humbly, if I liked what he played on his piano. But we all know the answer to that question!

PAN M 360: What musical styles did you explore with him?

Lara Rain: All of them. All of them. Ziad is my biggest music school. It’s because of him that today I listen to Arabic music. Well, maybe not just any: only Fairuz and Ziad Rahbani. He has a unique way of mixing Lebanese music with jazz. An exchange of cultures that speaks to my heart.

PAN M 360: When did you return to Montreal?

Lara Rain: I came to Montreal in February 2020 to accompany my fiancé on his tour. He’s a musician too. We were planning to get married here with my family, and then go back to Lebanon to celebrate with his family. But circumstances did not allow it. And we ended up settling in Montreal… the city welcomed us very well. Montreal has always been my great getaway over the years. I always wanted to come back here. My husband will be playing with me on November 28. In fact, he is the one who took care of the musical aspect of the concert. He is working very hard for this show, at my side. 

PAN M 360: What is your state of mind regarding the current situation in Lebanon, the youth revolt, the anti-corruption movement, last summer’s explosion, etc.?

Lara Rain: Before I came back to Canada, I was on the streets of Lebanon almost every day with my flag in my hand. I have never been a patriot, but the revolution has awakened in me this sense of belonging. We absolutely need change! Young people don’t want to know anything anymore about all these political parties that only separate us by showing our differences. It’s time to build a country on common beliefs. We have so many similarities, we want the same things: to live with dignity and to have an honest and reliable government. The Lebanese have been robbed for years. The corruption of the country disgusts me. The explosion… leaves me speechless.  All I can say is that I keep hope, that one day we can all go back to this beautiful country… that one day I will produce another play there, that I will see again all those who (like me) had to leave, and that Lebanon will become again what it once was. 

PAN M 360: What will Ziad’s repertoire be on the FMA programme?

Lara Rain: I will mainly sing the songs that I have already performed alongside Ziad. There are others that he had asked me to prepare but that we have never sung together. As I work on them, I always imagine him sitting in front of me and I can imagine how he would have liked to listen to them! I’ve been missing him a lot since we started the preparations! Singing Ziad, without Ziad… it makes me melancholy and nostalgic.

PAN M 360: Any Fairuz classics on the programme?

Lara Rain: Yes, of course! In addition to the beautiful songs that Ziad Rahbani wrote for his mother, I will also sing classics composed by his father (Assi) and his uncle (Mansour).

PAN M 360: Do you plan to perform your own songs?

Lara Rain: I have written a lot of songs during my career. Most of them have been transformed and are now part of my musicals.  But I will only sing two of them during the concert: the first song I wrote in Arabic, and Ziad’s favourite song, the first one he asked me to record in his studio. I would like to thank the Festival du monde arabe for this great opportunity! I have always dreamed of coming back to Montreal, my hometown, with Ziad. I also always wanted to do a show at Place des Arts. Because of the current circumstances, the situation is not exactly what I imagined… an empty venue, and Ziad in Lebanon. But the festival has found a nice solution to all this… and my family in Lebanon, as well as Ziad, will be able to watch the show online.