Storm Weather Shanty Choir was established in October 2000 by shantyman Haakon Vatle. The background for this music he has from the Norwegian tall ship “SS Statsraad Lehmkuhl” where he has been working every season since 1997. In addition, he has also done parallel music studies, with shanties as main topics, and has a living interest in maritime history and culture of tall ships and shanties. The choir counts six young crewmembers, all of them with a broad musical background.

Since the choir was established, we have managed to release three cds and done lots of concerts and performances. Some of the highlights of the past few years have been the Langesund International Shantyfestival, Festival Maritim in Bremen (Germany), Telemarkfestivalen in Bø and Bergenfest 2006. Feedback from our concerts have been very good, and we think that the main reason for our “little success” is that we enjoy so much doing this, and also that we allow and encourage our guests to sing along with us!

Our mission and main directives is to bring forth a forgotten song tradition. At the same time we wish to give our audience, and ourselves, a lot of fun, and experience the pleasure of salty folk music. With the old true sailors in mind, we wish to give the shanties all the power, humour and respect they deserve.

Our name is supposed to reflect our way of singing, and we sing with all the power and soul as we think they did in the old days onboard the sailing ships. Many have said that our interpretations sounds like the “real thing”. Although we sing with all the power we can give, we also do many of the salty, melancholic, forebitters, and we do it with all the respect we can give to the old sea dogs!

The most of our stuff we do a cappella, but we also include mandolin, flute, and guitar on some of our songs. As far as it is possible, we do our concerts without any microphones. They did not use microphones while rounding the salty Cape Horn, so we should be able to do the same in a pub!!

Here follows a short presentation of the six choir members:

Håkon Vatle (shantyman)

Teacher, tallship sailor with a masters degree in shanties and a great passion for maritime history and culture, guitarplayer, has had different roles in musicals, has been on Bermuda!

Ronny Sætre (baryton)

Teacher, diver, guitarplayer, a master of finger doll acting.

Rune Nesse (bass)

Drummer & drum teacher with a great passion for death metal and brass band!

Vidar Vedå (bass)

Engineer, collector of sunglasses, mountain climber, singer/songwriter, has played in various bands and had different roles in theatre and musicals.

Roald Kaldestad (lyrical tenor)

Has three small sons, guitarplayer of profession, author, with an honours degree in arts-history. Has been fourty minutes from Bermuda!!

Gisle Østrem (lyrical tenor)

Responsible for the ICT solutions for the municipality of Stord, “taskenplayer”, sound engieer, bassplayer, and Beatles fan