Jazz award winner wants the Kongsberg people out along the river.

The musician has teamed up with two journalists to create a sound walk along Lågen in the city centre.

- The entire work we create springs from a desire to explore local nature, and the idea that the better you know the nature around you, the more you will want to take care of it, says Anja Lauvdal.

- Then you have to go out and actually see and feel that nature!

The musician-composer received the Kongsberg Jazz Festival musician prize in 2021 and is creating the commissioned work "If we could talk" for this year's festival. There will be a concert with her Cosmic River on the festival's opening day. The concert takes the form of a fictional conversation with Numedalslågen.

But the musician doesn't just want to bring the river into the concert hall, she also wants to get people out to the river. Together with journalist Ingerid Salvesen and photographer Line Ørnes Søndergaard, she is therefore creating a sound walk along part of the lodge in the center of Kongsberg. The aim is to bring people closer to the river and its stories.

The sound walk will combine Lauvdal's music with interviews, archive clips and texts that you listen to while walking along the river, and will be crowned with a video experience of the river.

There will be guided tours in connection with the concert, but the sound walk can also be taken alone and will be open to everyone from Wednesday 29 June – one week before the start of the festival. 

- Take the Sunday trip along Lågen, then!, encourages Lauvdal.

She promises that it is easy to complete the walk yourself, and you will find everything you need to know on the festival's website.

- But join a guided tour during the festival too! It is something that will only happen live, she adds and smiles.

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"You can do the sound walk in two ways: as a guided tour or on your own. 

During the festival week, there will be two guided sound walks that we recommend and hope people will come on. Then co-creator of the sound walk, Ingerid Salvesen, will guide you through it. Those who choose this will also get to experience some things that only happen live. The first takes place on Wednesday 6 July at 18 p.m., and ends in the concert If we could talk at Energimølla at 19 p.m. The second takes place the following day, Thursday 7 July, at 11 a.m. The meeting is where the sound walk starts, on the west side of Gamlebrua, in end of Hyttegata.

If you can't make it at these times, it's fine to make the trip on your own. Here comes a recipe.

In advance: Put on comfortable shoes, during the hike you will walk a little away from the path and down towards the river. Bring a smartphone and earphones. Download the “Echoes” app. 

When to start: In the Echoes app, there will be a walk called "If we could talk", at the top under "near you/nær deg". If it's not there, you have to search for it. Press the magnifying glass in the right corner and write "If we could talk". 

Once you find it, tap on the ride. Then press “Stream walk”. Put on the earphones.

You will see a black map of the area with some areas shaded in blue. The blue drop marks your position on the map. When you (and the blue drop) move into a shaded area on the map, a new sound clip will start playing. A few have experienced starting problems with not hearing the first clip, then it helps to press the pause button at the bottom of the screen, before pressing the play button again. 

This sound walk is designed to go slowly, to see and listen to the surroundings along the way and also to stop a bit. Finish listening to the sound clip before exiting a blue area and entering the next. 

Good trip!"