#WomenToTheFore

We talk to Ragnhild Menes, Director of Kongsberg Jazzfestival and Chair of Norsk jazzforum

What inspired you to pursue a career in creative music? How did your interest in music develop, and what were your first steps into your career?

In high school in Norway, you choose from different pathways, and I chose the music direction, playing piano as my main instrument. I'm from a very small place, so it wasn’t until high school that I started to meet people with similar interests. 

I was mainly into pop music, and played classical on the clarinet and piano. I didn’t have much awareness of jazz. One thing completely changed this for me. A nearby town had a jazz club that offered free entrance for under-20s. I went along with some fellow students, and I still remember that first moment when I experienced live jazz. I was sitting close to the musicians and it was so different from listening to a record. It blew my mind. I started going to these concerts every other week. That's how my interest in jazz started - and in music that could challenge me.

I wasn’t interested in pursuing a career in performing – I never liked playing for an audience, felt too shy and that I was’t good enough. Instead, I took a bachelor's degree in cultural studies and arts management, and got involved in the student venue, spending as much time there as with my studies, doing everything from programming to PR and technical work. 

In my final year, we did a 6-week placement at a cultural institution, and I contacted Kongsberg Jazzfestival. I had never been to the festival, but it wasn't far from where I studied. I looked at their programme and was intrigued by how they combined jazz and more modern stuff. I was accepted for the placement, my first connection with the festival. That was 20 years ago, so I've had a long-term relationship with Kongsberg - I even wrote my university dissertation about it!

After I graduated, I went to Glasgow and took a master's degree in cultural heritage and at this point, I thought I would work within the museum sector but found my way back to jazz. I did different things for several years, worked for a publishing house, worked with cultural policies and activities at a local municipality, and at the same time volunteered for a few different festivals. 

At the same time, I was asked to join the programme board at Kongsberg Jazzfestival and eventually I started doing different projects for East Norway Jazz Centre and then Norsk jazzforum, the national organisation for jazz in Norway. In 2014 I became a full time member of the team at Kongsberg Jazzfestival as head of marketing and communication. Apart for a few breaks when I had my two kids and one year working for Norsk jazzforum again, things came full circle, and I became director of Kongsberg Jazzfestival in 2021.

How would you describe your role and the festival itself?
I'm the director, which means I work with the programme, and I'm also the general manager. Although I'm in charge of the programming, I have a programme board working closely with me and the decision-making processes are very democratic. We have a team of 4-5 people working all year round.

Kongsberg Jazz Festival is one of the longest-running festivals, both in Norway and Europe. We celebrated our 60th anniversary in 2024. It's in a small town, so the whole town is involved in making this festival happen. It attracts lots of people – around 25,000 tickets are sold. We have about 60 concerts on the main programme, but we also have a big free outdoor programme, so about 150 concerts in all. We both use local venues as well as building our own outdoor arenas. 

We present a wide spectrum of jazz music, from experimental and free jazz to more mainstream jazz, and we also have quite a big commercial programme. We create programmes for everyone from children to the elderly in care homes. It's for four days, but it's an explosion of activity with about 600 volunteers involved. Then it's over until next year.

Did you have any role models or mentors that inspired, influenced or supported you?

I haven't really had any formal mentors, but I've appreciated my colleagues within the other jazz festivals in Norway. One woman I admire is Trude Storheim, who has been the head of Vossa Jazz in Norway for many years. She's been supportive and a role model to me.

I also appreciate my supportive peers in the Europe Jazz Network. If I have a problem, I can always phone one of my colleagues at the other festivals in Norway or within EJN. We don’t look at each other as competitors; it's more like we're colleagues.

Do you feel you have faced any specific challenges as a woman in the jazz and creative music sector?

Because I'd been involved with the festival for so long, I guess I was more easily accepted when I came into the position as director. But some older men always like to point out what you're doing wrong. I wish I didn’t care about it, but I do, and they never point it out if they think you're doing something right, do they?

I also notice it when I go to jazz industry events like jazzahead. I often go with a male colleague involved with our programming, and we always talk about how, especially in the first few years, people we met – agents and such – would always talk to my colleague like he was in charge. It's funny how people immediately assume that the male is in charge of all the decision-making and I'm just coming along on the side. We mainly laugh about it, but it does make you reflect.

Have you seen changes in gender equality in the sector, and what do you think still needs to change?

Now, we're over that phase. People have accepted that this is something we have to work on. Whether they agree or disagree about it, they accept that this is something everyone in the sector needs to address. That's the biggest change. I don't have to defend or explain why it's important to think about gender balance in the programme anymore. 

Of course, there are many female instrumentalists out there, but they're still under-represented on stages. In the jazz sector, there are more and more women involved professionally, but it's often the males who are in artistic director positions or in charge of the programming. But I think that's also changing – I see more and more female programmers, at least here in Norway. I think it's happening in the rest of Europe as well.

How would you describe your leadership approach at Kongsberg Jazz Festival? What defines it? How does it influence your programming and your audiences?

We also have a really big team of volunteers involved in the festival almost all year round. They have a strong ownership of the festival. They need to be involved in decisions, which means things can take a bit more time because so many people are included in the decision-making processes and in working out new ideas. Sometimes it's a bit challenging, but mainly it's a good thing.

As the director and paid staff, we're here to serve the volunteers, not the opposite. Even though that's not always how it works in real life, that's the philosophy of the festival – it's the volunteers who run it.

We're quite down-to-earth, and that’s reflected in the atmosphere we want to create at the festival. I want everyone to feel involved in the festival, whether they're into jazz or not. I want people living here in Kongsberg to feel included and involved, that it’s their festival. 

This approach is reflected both in our programme and in our audiences. We want to create something for families and small children, and we want to be present in care homes to make sure that older people can also have the jazz festival experience, even if they can't come to the festival.

I like this way of working. Sometimes, it can be frustrating being in a small town where you think no one's really into jazz. I sometimes envy people working in Oslo where there's a big audience for what you do. But, I like how we have so many different people involved in the festival, all with different motivations. Some are interested and curious about jazz, while others just want to contribute and be part of something happening in their town. I think this is also a way of creating wider interest in the jazz scene.

What are the biggest challenges you have faced in the role?
The biggest challenge I've faced was the controversy with a sponsor we had. It developed into a huge conflict. It's four years ago now, but I still find it hard to talk about because there are so many different versions of that story.

In Kongsberg, which is a really small town, there's a big cornerstone company – a technology company with different divisions. It's partly government-owned and is the basis of the whole town. So many people work there, and those who don't are suppliers to it in some way. Part of what they produce are defense systems and weapons.

Because of this sponsorship, the festival experienced a growing boycott from musicians over several years. Right before I started as director, the board decided not to renew the sponsorship deal with this company but to find other ways of maintaining a good relationship, since it's an important company for the local community.

This happened during the pandemic when everyone was working from home. I had just started as director and thought the issue was settled. Suddenly, the whole story blew up badly in the local newspaper, then developed into a national news story. The festival completely lost control of the communication.

In the local community, people felt like the festival had turned its back on them. On the other hand, the jazz community and musicians were happy about the sponsorship ending. We were torn between two sides, and the festival didn't really want to take a stand – we just wanted to find a way to move forward without having a boycott.

I found it all horrible at the time. I had just moved to Kongsberg with my family – I'd been in the job for four weeks. I didn't want to go outside in public because the commentary sections felt so hostile.

What I learned from it is that people need to meet, talk, and communicate with each other. I think the festival had been afraid of taking on this discussion for a long time, so it had been boiling up. And it's not black or white – you have to see it from different perspectives.

The festival also lost several other sponsors in the aftermath, so we ended up in a tough financial situation. I've been dealing with this story in different ways in the years since, but now things are stable and the community relationships have begun to heal. One good thing is that I've developed a much thicker skin from the experience. 

Norway is renowned for its strong and progressive music scene - how do you balance the need to lean into that strength and the long history of Kongsberg Jazz Festival, and also bring new and international voices into the festival?

We also have a programme board with four members, which is good because it changes somewhat each year. Some people stay, but we always get some new voices in. I think this model is a good thing. We don't have one artistic director solely in charge of the programming, and it ensures we have different perspectives and new ideas.

We try to get out and listen to music, both in Norway and abroad. We always aim to have a mix of established Norwegian and Scandinavian names, established international artists, young voices, and different genres within the jazz field.

I think we could become better at introducing new international voices. We do it a lot with experimental jazz music, though maybe not so much in other areas.

Collaboration and networking are crucial in the creative music sector. How do you foster long-term relationships with artists, partners, and other industry professionals to create opportunities for your festival and audiences?

It's hard to say exactly how you do it – you talk to people and try to figure out ways of collaborating, or sometimes just exchanging ideas and experiences, challenges and how to deal with them.

We also invite industry professionals from across Europe to our festival. The festival has become an important place to expand our international network while providing a platform for others to network too.

This year, we're collaborating with a few other festivals on different commissions which have grown out of our networks.

What tips would you give to young people who aspire to become programmers, festival managers and curators?

Also, be aware that there's risk involved in doing this job. You have to be comfortable with both artistic risk and financial risk. People will always have lots of opinions about you and the work you do – you just have to not worry too much about those opinions and develop a thick skin.

If you could go back in time and give your younger self one piece of advice, what would it be?

I have to keep reminding myself of this advice even today. I wish someone had said this to me 20 years ago.

Which artists are you excited about? In particular, are there any up-and-coming female or non-binary artists that our members should be looking out for?

One is Tuva Halse, a great violinist. She has both a jazz and classical background, and you can also feel some folk influence in her playing.

The other is Henriette Eilertsen, a flautist. There aren't so many flautists on the jazz scene. She's doing lots of different things – composing for large ensembles and leading a great trio with more improvised music. 

Both of them are doing commissions at this year’s festival that I’m very much looking forward to.
 

My goal hasn't been to create the biggest festival, but one of high quality. I'm not afraid of being eclectic in programming, and I believe the experimental parts of our programme are just as important as the big headliners. I want to lift up those parts of the programme that may attract a smaller audience – they're just as important for us as a festival.

I've also been committed to gender balance. We joined the Keychange initiative after I took over.

As for what's next, I'm not very good at picturing myself doing something else. At some point, I'll take the next step, though I don't know yet what it will be. I hope to keep working with this music scene and with audiences – that's what I like the most.
 

I would love to see more awareness, not only towards gender equality but equality in general. We're talking a lot about identifying the barriers that prevent much of the population from finding our music scene, or even the live sector, relevant to them. I hope we'll see more awareness in identifying those barriers – physical barriers and accessibility issues, financial barriers, and the lack of representation on stages.

The geopolitical situation is worrying. Every day just gets worse – the news gets to you. I hope the creative music scene, musicians, and artists will play a significant role in this new context we're experiencing – a role of change, protest, and bringing people together. Art and music have always played that role, but how much varies over time. I hope we see the cultural sector playing a crucial role in the coming decade.

Image credits

1. Photo: Nina Djærff
2. Festival opening parade Photo: Thomas Hegna
3. Photo: Birgit Fostervold
4. Photo: Thomas Hegna
5. Festival volunteers. Photo: Thomas Hegna
6. Space: Photo: Birgit Fostervold
7. KJF Susanna & Baudelaire featuring Oslo Sinfonietta. Photo: Morten Kolve
8. Hedvig Mollestad. Photo: Birgit Fostervold
9. Mona Krogstad. Photo: Birgit Fostervold