Marja Mortensson & Daniel Herskedal

Raajroe/The Reindeer Caravan

In 2021, multiple Norwegian Grammy Award winner Marja Mortensson released her new album Raajroe - The Reindeer Caravan. Beautifully arranged and orchestrated by Daniel Herskedal, it is a fitting tribute to the oral tradition of the indigenous Saami people.

Mortensson is part of the youngest generation of indigenous peoples who, on the one hand, are returning to their roots and politicizing themselves while living modern lives in the 21st century. The annual Raajroe event, the herding of reindeer to new pastures, is not an abstract image for her. It has been an annual tradition for her since childhood. The singer has dusted off the Southern Saami language, which is threatened with extinction, and brought it to the public, making it to the stage of the Nobel Prize award ceremony with her joiks and Saami singing. Raajroe was recorded together with the prestigious Norwegian Radio Orchestra NORK - now she is on tour in Europe in the smallest possible line-up with the multiple award-winning tuba player and composer Daniel Herskedal.
In keeping with the tradition of the Saami people, the music is a thanksgiving to nature itself, to the reindeer, and to all the ancestors who carefully traversed this land before us. These are stories from a time Mortensson herself did not live to tell, but through her commitment to the Saami oral tradition, the joik and the South Saami language, she is passing on the traditions of her people to future generations. Raajroe - The Reindeer Caravan offers a young interpretation of a tradition that dates back to when people first began following the tracks of wandering reindeer. The musical story told on this album through the eyes of Mortensson's ancestors and their reindeer herds is full of love for eatneme, mother earth, for bovtsh, the reindeer, and nature itself.