RYBAK’S UNKNOWN PAST IN LARVIK - article in Østlands-Posten, 8.5.2009

Rybak’s unknown past in Larvik

Text: Kjeld-Willy Hansen | Published: in Østlands-Posten | 8.5.2009 

Translated by Mónika Menyhért 

who is not native either in the Norwegian or in the English language, 

so any correction is welcomed and appreciated

A Russian street musician and his eight-year-old violin-playing son.

It's an Espen Askeladden story from the reality. A story that starts in the early 1990s with a Russian street musician in Larvik and his seven-year-old violin-playing son. Next week, the "boy" will take the stage in Moscow as Norway's hope in Eurovision Song Contest.

Because the success story of the Norwegian Melodi Grand Prix charmer Alexander Rybak (22) has a small prologue in Larvik. It starts a summer day in 1991 outside a café in Larvik at that time.

There is a fragile man with a mustache sitting and playing the violin so amazingly that passersby stop and watched in awe. Ronald Larsen, a skilled musician himself nudges his buddy Odd Seemann running Bøkedampen (“Beech steam locomotive”, sightseeing train) and says: "Look at him there!".

They strike a conversation with the musician, and Odd takes him on the Bøkedampen up to Bøkekroa (restaurant, guest house), where Håkon Sunndal takes care of getting him food. He offers the violinist accommodation in the tent where a Prøysen cabaret enthrall the audience in the evenings, and lets him unleash the violin in Bøkekroa - and in his own 50-year old team - so both tones and tears rolling.

Here is a facsimile of the ØP-article from Friday 12th July about the musician who stayed overnight in a borrowed sleeping bag in the Bøkeskogen, in the tent where a Prøysen-cabaret was played in the evening. 

ØP-facsimile: The Larvik audience was overwhelmed by the 37-year-old
 Igor Rybak's violin play when he visited the city in the summer of 1991. Photo: Archive

The rumors of the beautiful play reach Østlands-Posten, which went out for interviewing the musician and published a longer article under the title "Russians playing so tears rolling".

The musician is Igor Rybak, the then 37-year-old defector from Belarus. He is so touched and grateful for the warm welcome in Larvik that he stays in the city for 14 days.

Today, the "street musician" is 55 years old, lives on Nesodden, has his own "Vivaldi orchestra" and is the proud father of Norway's new star artist, Alexander. I've taken the trip to Oslo, catching him as he walks off the boat from Nesodden and brought him with me into the City Hall Gallery where New Larvik is showcased.

I came to Norway in the summer of '91 with a chamber orchestra from Minsk. It was a very good orchestra and we had been touring all over the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. This was the first trip outside Eastern Europe ever, and I decided to jump off, he says.

Proud father: Igor Rybak (53)

is currently a proud father.

Next week, he and his wife Natasha

travel to Moscow to cheer on their son

Alexander during the Eurovision final. 

Photo: Kjeld-Willy Hansen

But '91, then the wall had fallen?

Yes, but the Communists still held Belarus in an iron grip. There was no freedom there, and I thirsted to say and think what I wanted without being afraid of informers at the neighboring table in the canteen, or in my own orchestra, he points out.

Were you not afraid of what could happen to the wife and son remained home, if you jumped off?

Of course, it was dangerous, and I had thought very much about them and feared something would happen. But I just had to take the chance and then try to get them here afterwards. When they came in 1993 on a tourist visa, fortunately the boundaries were open, he remembers and admits he was mad with happiness when he and the family seven years later received Norwegian citizenship.

It was summer 1991 when you came to Larvik?

Yes, that is, I met a nice family on Nesodden I got to live, Coucheron, who hid me after the defect", he recalls and tells that he became a music teacher of the son of the house, David.

At the same time I got a job in the opera, but when the summer holidays came, I wanted to look around the country. I love to travel and play for people but had little money. So I packed the violin, went down to Moss, took the ferry to Horten and hitchhiked from there.

After Tønsberg I had to go a long way, but eventually got a ride with a car that was going to Larvik, and there I set myself up at Market Place, he smiles.

Did you get any money from the street performance?

Yes, actually. I also ended up in Bøkeskogen ( "The Beech Tree Forest" ), a great place, and was well welcomed by Håkon Sunndal and his family. I also played in his 50-year old team, but also in a nursing home in the city. I like it, playing in nursing homes and retirement homes, assuring the multi-musician, who is, besides violin playing the viola, piano, accordion, guitar, trumpet and balalajka, and his musician heart beats also for young people.

After having played in the orchestra of The Norwegian Opera and Norwegian Radio Orchestra, he transforms today young beginners to full experienced musicians in his own "Vivaldi orchestra" in Oslo. Also the piano-playing wife, Nathalie or Natasha, whom he met at the music academy in Minsk, teaches music at the Steinerskolen in Oslo.

That means that the path of little Alexander was early marked out?

Yes. There has always been a lot of music at our house. Alexander liked to sing and first learned to play the piano, but hated to practice. By the way, there were two aunts of mine, both also playing violin, who discovered early that he was exceptionally musical and should go for the violin.

Thus, when I finally got the family over to Norway, started to work more systematically with him myself, two to three hours each day, he says and reveals that his son was already a soloist with larger orchestras, both on violin and piano.

As a music pedagogue, it is important to me that students not only learn to play an instrument and play strong and soft. They must also put soul and emotions in the expression, and I also put that into Alex: Use the feelings and communicate the music!

Will there be any new visit to Larvik?

It can happen soon, at least I want to greet old acquaintances and feel like to play, I only have good memories from Larvik, and that was also why I took with me Nathasha and Alexander to visit the people who had shown me so much warmth, he points out.

As a classically educated musician and now as a music teacher, what do you think of the Eurovision-circus?

It is quite ok and exciting with the competitions, but there is not too much camaraderie-voting. When I lived in Belarus, Eurovision was not something we knew about. And the western rock and pop were hard to find.

I remember being in heaven when I obtained a Beatles album, but it cost a whole month's salary and was additionally equipped with an anonymous cover so no one would discover that it was illegal rock music from the west, chuckling the sympathetic violinist, which melted completely for the music of Alf Prøysen when he was lying in a borrowed sleeping bag on the wooden benches in Bøkeskogen in the summer of '91.

And who himself melted hearts with his stirring violin play in Larvik. In Moscow, his son can do the same with Europeans' music hearts.

And Alexander also remembers those times of wandering in an interview in the same paper (HERE) and he also mentions Larvik in this relation HERE like "– I have many memories from Larvik. My father and I played in Bøkeskogen when I was 10, and later I have returned every year, says the all-time clearest winner of Eurovision Song Contest."

Farris Bad: Alexander Rybak (22) has played high up and far after the performances at Bøkekroa in the summer of 1994. Here he is snapped during the opening of Farris Bad earlier this spring. Photo: Emilie Bredvei Solbakken

➡MORE PHOTOS from Alexander's concert referred to in this article, at the opening celebration for the Farris Bad spa in Larvik in spring of 2009

And here is a video from the concert in Larvik 

... and in Skien

***

Also read the interview with Alexander's Mom Natalia about how it was to leave their home country and to settle in Norway. ➡HERE