Hello! This first post arrives here at around the same time as Spring is arriving in Stockholm. There is still snow on the ground, but an ever larger expanse of green is beginning to show through, and the sun is rising steadily higher each day. I’m happy because I have just been asked to be a guest teacher on the summer fiddle school at Malungs Folkhögskola this year.

It is a special place, out in the countryside, in the west of Sweden. It feels extra special for me to be invited there as a teacher, as the summer fiddle school was the reason for my first ever trip to Sweden in 2004. I had become interested in Swedish folk music the previous year, and wanted to test the water and meet some other musicians to play with.

I arrived by train, at a tiny platform in the middle of the forest, and followed the stream of people with fiddle cases and rucksacks walking up the path towards the school in the late summer’s evening.

Nine years later I’m living in Sweden, a graduate of the Royal College of Music in Stockholm with a BA and MA in Swedish folk music, and working as a freelance musician.

And the wild blue notes that drew me north of my roots in northern England are still as enticing and intriguing as ever.

If you are interested in finding out more about this year’s summer fiddle school, here’s a link to their website:

http://www.malungsfolkhogskola.se/kurser/kortkurser-sommarkurser