Let's head to Norway for an unusual music festival. Creating sound from the most primitive of materials: the Ice Music Festival has enchanted crowds in the village of Geilo, in the mountains north of Oslo.

Creating sound from the most primitive of materials: the Ice Music Festival has enchanted crowds in the village of Geilo, in the mountains north of Oslo.

The musicians perform on instruments made from ice, a renewable resource found in abundance in the mountainous region of Norway.

Whether it be string instruments, wind instruments or percussions, the pioneers of Ice Music are always seeking to experiment with new sounds and new textures.

"It all started when I was asked to do a commissioned concert that was to be held in a frozen waterfall, in Lille Hammer in 2000. So I combined ordinary instruments with elements from the actual waterfall. This is stones, wooden pieces, the sound of the water, and even ice. I found it so beautiful, both the sound and the visual, that I was completely stuck with it. So the year after, I made the world's first recording of Ice Music." Said Terje Isungset, founder of Ice Music Festival.

The nature of the instruments imposes certain constraints: concerts must be held in sub-zero temperatures or else the instruments will melt.

Most must be custom-built for specific performances with ice harvested locally, which can affect the quality of the sound.

"You know, ice changes a lot depending on the winter and how fast it freezes. Sometimes we get a lot of air bubbles in the ice which makes it good for construction. When we have perfect clarity, no bubbles, no cracks, no impurities, that's the ice we use for the chimes and the marimba pieces, and the balafons pieces," Said Bill Covitz, ice sculptor.

For the Ice Festival's founder, pushing the traditional boundaries of music while sharing this path of experimentation with others is part of his mission.

"I like to challenge people. Some years ago, we had some indians from Guatemala. They had never seen snow before, or ice. And they came and they performed on instruments made out of ice," Terje said.

For now, it appears to be a success. The audience, though never huge, is comprised of regular locals and a number of aficionados from a broad range of countries and regions, including France, Argentina and Taiwan.

And with the audience struggling to spend more than an hour seated outside in the snow, the festival's atmosphere wraps up later in the evening, in the warmth of a Norwegian mountain cafe.

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