Just to whet your appetites ahead of our upcoming performance of The Devil’s Purse in Värmland this week, here is a brand new teaser with previously unreleased footage, hot off the press…. the next opportunity to see the show in its entirety will be on Thursday 18th September at Västanå Teater, Brårud. Don’t miss it!
18/9 kl. 19:00 på Västanå Teater, Brårud. 150 :-
Biljetter: martin@vastanateater.se 073 542 44 04
Here it is! Our brand new trailer for the storytelling performance The Devil’s Purse & The Other People! We had great fun filming it one rainy day back in May, in a beautiful old house in the countryside outside Stockholm. It was freezing cold, we had a log fire burning, and in between takes we huddled in down jackets, scarves and hats. Thanks to the creative talents of our film director and editor Daniel Rudholm, we can now release this beautiful film into the world. Happy watching!
We’ll be performing The Devil’s Purse at Korröfestivalen in the south of Sweden later this month, hope to see some of you there!
If you have been following my Facebook page you will know that things have not stood still since the last time I updated this blog just over a year ago…! But now it’s time for an update here too.
After a great autumn in the UK, touring with some of my bands and commencing work on Connecting Threads, my second klingande utställning (exhibition with live performance) with generous support from Kulturbryggan, I’m now back in Stockholm. It’s great to catch up with friends on this side of the sea again, and there are some exciting times ahead. I’m very happy to announce that my duo Bridget Marsden & Leif Ottosson will be heading into the studio in August to record our debut album, to be released on the innovative Swedish label Playing With Music.
Last week I received the wonderful news that my new project Reflections with Scottish fiddler Sarah-Jane Summers has received a big grant from Statens musikverk (Music Development and Heritage Sweden). The funding means that we can now go ahead and put our ideas into practice, which we are thrilled about! Solo fiddle traditions from Sweden, Scotland and Norway form our musical starting point, and we will also be incorporating visual elements into the project. We will be showcasing our new material in a mini tour in Sweden at the end of the year, so keep a look out for tour dates.
This spring I’ve been working on some new material with my baroque violin duo with Elin Nilsson, and we’re looking forward to sharing some of it in the stunning surroundings of Tyska kyrkan in Gamla Stan as part of Stockholm Culture Night on 26th April. Hope to see you there!
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