During the 2025–2026 season, NordSync Project has gradually expanded its field of work.
From the beginning, one of NordSync’s main ambitions has been to connect professional artists across the Nordic and Barents regions and to create opportunities for new interdisciplinary productions, artistic exchange and long-term cooperation. Over the past season, however, another direction has become increasingly important: cooperation with voluntary and non-profit cultural organisations.
Orchestra societies, music associations, cultural organisations, youth ensembles and other locally rooted initiatives play a fundamental role in cultural life throughout the Nordic region. By involving these organisations more actively in NordSync’s work, we have been able to broaden both the reach and the practical impact of our projects, while creating stronger connections between professional artists, young musicians, amateurs and local communities.
This development has already resulted in several concrete projects.
One of them was Kulturkombo, an interdisciplinary youth camp held in Tärnaby, Sweden, in June 2026. During an intensive week, close to one hundred young participants from Norway, Sweden and Finland met across borders and artistic disciplines. Music, theatre, dance, film and other forms of creative expression were brought together in a shared programme where young people could explore new fields, collaborate and create together.
Another major initiative is the Nordic Youth Music Initiative, which will take place in Mo i Rana in October 2026. Rather than being a traditional orchestra course, the project is conceived as a Nordic meeting place for young and amateur musicians from Norway, Sweden and Finland.
Another major initiative is the Nordic Youth Music Initiative, which will take place in Mo i Rana in October 2026. Rather than being a traditional orchestra course, the project is conceived as a Nordic meeting place for young and amateur musicians from Norway, Sweden and Finland.
At the centre of the programme is a large-scale joint orchestra with around 100 participants, including approximately 80 young musicians from the three countries. The project will culminate in the world premiere of a newly composed work by Bodvar Drotninghaug Moe, written for the unusual combination of hardingfele and nyckelharpa as solo instruments together with chamber orchestra and a larger youth ensemble. The collaboration builds further on NordSync’s existing work with Moe and on the project’s ambition to create new repertoire that can live beyond a single premiere.
These experiences have led us to a broader understanding of what NordSync can become.
Introducing NordSync Atlas
From the 2026–2027 season, we are therefore establishing NordSync Atlas – a new programme within NordSync Project focusing on youth, participation, music education and cooperation with voluntary cultural environments across the Nordic regio
NordSync Atlas is both a new direction and a natural extension of our existing work.
Its ambition is to create stronger connections between professional artistic practice, music education, voluntary organisations and young participants in Northern Norway, Sweden and Finland. Through the programme, we want to develop practical models for cooperation that make it easier for young people to meet across borders, learn from professional artists, participate in ambitious artistic projects and become part of a wider Nordic cultural community.
At the same time, Atlas will give greater attention to the organisations and individuals who make cultural activity possible locally: orchestra societies, music schools, teachers, conductors, cultural associations, parents, volunteers and other organisers.
The aim is not to create a separate structure alongside NordSync, but to connect these environments more directly with the international network that already exists.
From network to long-term cooperation
NordSync was originally established as a network for performing artists, with a strong emphasis on interdisciplinary work, knowledge exchange and cooperation across national borders. From the earliest stages, however, the project also recognised the importance of local communities and voluntary cultural organisations.
During the 2025–2026 season, this became a much more explicit part of our programme. Our work increasingly focused on building bridges between professionals and amateurs, involving local organisations in artistic productions, and creating formats where professional artists could also function as mentors, teachers and collaborators.
The response from our partners has strengthened our belief that this direction should become a permanent part of NordSync.
Our Swedish partners have likewise emphasised the importance of east–west cooperation across Scandinavia and of projects that bring together both adults and young people from neighbouring countries.
NordSync Atlas is our next step in developing this work systematically.
What will NordSync Atlas do?
The programme will focus on several closely connected areas: cross-border youth projects, cooperation between voluntary cultural organisations, exchange of pedagogical experience, development of new artistic and educational formats, and stronger links between professional musicians and young or amateur participants.
We also want Atlas to become a platform for mapping and connecting cultural environments that may otherwise work relatively independently from one another.
Northern Norway, northern Sweden and Finland contain a large number of highly active music schools, orchestra societies, associations and local initiatives. Many face similar questions concerning recruitment, artistic development, access to professional expertise, geographical distance and long-term sustainability.
By connecting these environments, we hope that NordSync Atlas can make knowledge, contacts and practical experience easier to share across borders.
The programme is currently taking more concrete shape through discussions with our partners in Sweden and Finland. Together, we are working on the practical structure, priorities and working methods that can make Atlas both useful and sustainable over time.
Integrated into NordSync Forum and NordSync Lab
NordSync Atlas will be directly integrated into NordSync’s existing annual programme.
NordSync Forum will continue to serve as a meeting place for discussion, networking, presentations and development of future projects, while NordSync Lab will provide a practical environment where ideas can be tested through workshops, rehearsals and artistic production.
This means that Atlas will not exist only as a theoretical network. Its activities will be connected to real meetings, educational work and artistic projects.
For the 2026–2027 season, NordSync is planning two major Forum gatherings and four NordSync Labs.
The first NordSync Lab of the new season will already take place in Mo i Rana in October 2026, closely connected with the Nordic Youth Music Initiative and the large Nordic youth orchestra project.
We are also very happy that the spring Forum and Lab are currently planned to take place in Finland. This will be a new main location for NordSync and an important next step after our most recent NordSync Forum in Umeå.
Expanding our physical meeting points from Norway and Sweden into Finland is particularly important for the long-term development of the network and for the ambition behind NordSync Atlas: to create a genuinely Nordic structure in which cooperation moves naturally across national borders.
A new season ahead
NordSync Atlas represents an important development in our work.
We will continue to create projects for professional artists and develop new interdisciplinary productions. At the same time, we want to strengthen the connections between professional culture, music education, voluntary organisations and young people.
We believe these areas should not exist separately.
When professional artists, young musicians, teachers, amateurs and local organisers are given the opportunity to meet and create together, the result can be more than a single concert or project. It can create relationships, knowledge and cultural infrastructure that remain in the region long after an event has ended.
That is the ambition behind NordSync Atlas.
The 2026–2027 season is already taking shape, and we are very much looking forward to sharing more about the programme, our partners and the upcoming activities in Norway, Sweden and Finland.
Follow NordSync Project on our website and Facebook page to stay updated and make sure you do not miss upcoming announcements, events and opportunities to participate.
We are very excited to begin this new chapter.
