folkBALTICA: Artists 2013

Artists

Despite the popularity of Dragseth Duo in the Schleswig-Holstein folk scene for over 30 years, Kalle Johannsen and Manuel Knortz have decided to upgrade to a quartet by bringing in Jens Jesse und Gerd Beliaeff. Their latest CD Stää und Stünn (Place and Time) is a slowly matured masterpiece that displays stylistic confidence and an intimacy usually only found in chamber music. Even those unfamiliar with the Low German tongue cannot fail to be impressed. Musician and painter Manuel Knortz will also be exhibiting his pictures from the Connecting Art and Music project at concerts in Sønderborg, Schleswig and Flensburg.

» Further information

Eivør (FO)

Everyone is simply spellbound by her breathtaking voice. Her charisma and her tight, atmospheric songs touch her audiences from the very first breath. She quit school at 15 to do what she really wanted to do: write songs and music. In the meantime she has produced 5 CDs, and received so many awards in the North Atlantic region as a performer and composer that she has lost count. Now aged 29, she tours worldwide, but her soul is in her homeland on the Faroe Islands, situated between England and Iceland. These descendants of the Vikings have their own language and are a self-governing country, even if the islands are classified as an “equal sovereign nation” that is part of the Kingdom of Denmark.

» Further information

Grenzgänger (D)

“Dark was the night, and the moon shone bright...“ and you have never seen the moon shoot past faster and more cheekily than with the Grenzgänger. They take all the old songs that they have found in attics and cellars, chuck them in the high-speed wash, give them a quick spin, and present them fresh and new with mandolin and accordion, cello, banjo, fiddle and guitar. Their style is a distinctive mixture of blues, soul, chanson, swing, Irish and American folk, through to rap and orient. Add to that the distinctive voice of Michael Zachzial, who also presents it all with great humour in a cabaret style, and it’s hardly surprising that they have raked in just about every award going.

» Further information

Hazelius & Hedin (S)

Last year in Malmö they won the title “Folk Band of the Year”. Esbjörn Hazelius and Johan Hedin Sweden’s most popular folk duo. Both of them have already performed in other groups. Singer Hazelius played with Lure, Irish folk bands Quilty and Eitre, and supported Sofia Karlsson. Johan Hedin plays the nyckelharpa in such a unique way that he has become the role model for many pupils. He also plays with concert organist Gunnar Idenstam and the world music group Bazar Blå. The repertoire of these two stars encompasses a broad range of poetic singing technique, from mediaeval love ballads and sea shanties to the “Slängpolska” of their southern Swedish homeland. They perform with an introspection that cannot fail to impress.

» Further information

Jan Gaca & Maciej Żurek (PL)

Jan Gaca is one of the most distinctive traditional Polish minstrels, so it is therefore a very great honour for folkBALTICA that the now 80-year-old fiddler has accepted our invitation. He joined his brother’s orchestra at the age of sixteen, first playing the frame drum, then the baraban, before he was trained as a violinist. Jan Gaca has his whole life long played a significant role in the traditional music scene in the Radom region, where he played at parties and official functions of all kinds. His sincerity and very special personality facilitated his passing on the tradition to numerous younger musicians, such as fiddler Maciej Żurek, who is accompanying him at the concerts that are part of folkBALTICA. Żurek himself comes from Masuria, where he is active as a musician and initiator of numerous projects that incorporate local music tradition. The festival audience can look forward to an exceptional experience with two artists of great personal integrity.

» Further information

Johanna- Adele Jüssi Band (EST, S, DK)

For us she is the embodiment of modern Nordic folk music, which is why the band that Johanna-Adele Jüssi started in 2008 will be appearing throughout the whole festival. She is appearing every day, mostly in the classic folk formation of two fiddles, guitar and double bass. Throughout the year the founder of the band tours the countries around the Baltic, bringing fascinating soundscapes back from her lengthy travels, rich in colour and brimming with tradition. She attaches great importance to the old myths, and the élan of the dances of our ancestors. The cosmopolitan Estonian musician draws on this to give her a power that she absorbs so that she can then carry it in a newly packaged musical form throughout the inhabited world of the North.

» Further information

Kristiina Ilmonen (FIN)

Kristiina Ilmonen has been an outstanding figure in the contemporary Finnish folk music scene since the 1990s. She has specialised in ethnic Nordic woodwind instruments like the flute, liru (wooden clarinet) and mänkeri (wind instrument with a simple reed), and includes them in her own original musical universe in an avant-garde manner. She was head of the highly praised folk music faculty at the Sibelius Akademie. In recent years she has been able to find more time to undertake foreign tours with her extensive collection of wind instruments. Her playing is masterly and rich in expression, and when the new and long-awaited concert house was opened in Helsinki a few years ago, it was Kristiina Ilmonen who played the first stanzas of the opening concert on one of her numerous flutes.

» Further information

Polkaholix (D)

With a hot brass sound consisting of trombone, saxophone and trumpet, Polkaholix dares to interpret pieces that we all know, but which we’ve never heard in this form. The band, founded in 2002, uses rock elements to turn folk up to full volume. Ska and punk and rock and roll whirl around one another, hard, fast and loud. The Berlin-based band underlays schmaltzy pop with polka to make it listenable again, building a bridge between generations. And even though the eight heavy lads are deeply rooted in German tradition, their cheeky masculine sound creates an exciting international effect. Two of their albums reached the Top 20 of the World Music Charts Europe with apparent ease.

» Further information

Janusz Prusinowski Trio (PL)

They call themselves a trio, but often appear as a five-man band, and show the real soul of Poland. You feel as though you are transported to a village square in Mazowia, the region alongside the Vistula. With traditional folk instruments such as fiddle, accordion and clarinet, and supported by a solid bass and rattling drums, they magic up mazurkas, kujawiaks and polkas without notes, like pulling rabbits out of a hat. With its tremendous freshness and enthusiasm, their music reaches your heart to the extent that you cannot keep your feet still. Followed up with melancholic interpretations that include wonderful trumpet solos, rhythmic breaks and surprising key changes. These are really excellent musicians, and everything sounds so authentically traditional that you hardly notice that some of them are really more at home with jazz, fusion etc., and have also played at the Carnegie Hall.

» Further information

Ragnhild Furebotten und ”Never on a Sunday” (N)

She is considered to be the new “fiddle queen” of North Nordic folk. Ragnhild Furebotten has taken Norway and the world by storm – and not without good reason. Her playing is unusually powerful, and combined with her own original compositions full of humour and joie de vivre.
She grew up in northern Norway and, after several years in Oslo and Denmark, moved back to the country where the winter is darkest, the summer is lightest, and the minstrel tradition is strongest. She speaks and plays in the local dialect, and brings it forth into the whole world. folkBALTICA ’13 presents her in the two most powerful line-ups, some of the time solo and some of the time with the brass band Never on a Sunday, with whom she won the Norwegian Spellemannspris (minstrels’ prize) in 2012 for the critically acclaimed album of the same name.
This is a very original and innovative combination of contrasts, of fiddle and brass band, and all done with a good bit of fun.

» Further information

Riders of the Lost Roll (PL)

Very few of us here are able to pronounce the band’s Polish name: Poszukiwacze Zaginionego Rulonu. It is roughly translated as hunters of the lost scroll, which is a reference to a wonderful saga from the region around the Polish city of Radom, home to the five musicians who have specialised in the old rural dances of the homeland. In the heyday of folk dance music, Radom was famous for its inexhaustible wealth of mazurkas, oberkas and polkas. The band was formed in the spring of 2012, and within just a short time they had won the Grand Prix of the “New Tradition“ folk contest staged by Polskie Radio. Then the Riders really took off, including a promotional tour for folkBALTICA during the winter, advertising this year’s festival focus on Poland.

» Further information

Agata Siemaszko & Kuba "Bobas" Wilk (PL)

It really is a great honour that we are the first to have the pleasure of presenting this massive talent on a festival stage in Germany and Denmark.
Agata Siemaszko has a uniquely powerful voice, which she uses expressively and seductively. She grew up with the vocal traditions of the ROMA in the Carpathian Mountains of southern Poland, a music that defines her artistic homeland and which she enhances through free improvisation and other genres. She does this with bassist Kuba "Bobas" Wilk, who comes from the jazz and funk scene. Wilk supports Agata Siemaszko brilliantly with his masterly playing. In 2011 they won the Grand Prix of Polish radio’s annual “New Traditions” festival.

» Further information

Steffen Brandt (DK)

He is one of Denmark’s greatest ever songwriters, and his songs have long been part of standard Danish repertoires, colloquial language and literary anthologies. Few have dealt with the issues of life, death, (great) love, and also the subject of men, in such an excellent way as Steffen Brandt has done over the last 30 years. He played mainly with the band TV-2, who are still racking up success after success at festivals and in the hit parades, but in recent years has also performed solo, and has been the inspiration and collaborator for a whole series of younger Danish songwriters and musicians.

» Further information

Trias (DK)

These four young musicians from Denmark – all excellent string players – have created their own, very personal approach to their country’s folk music. Playing their own impressive compositions as well as traditional melodies, they create a tight, harmonious musical experience. The high quality of the music is instantly recognisable, and is simply fun to listen to. This new band is bound to make its mark, and we are pleased to be able to present them at folkBALTICA.

» Further information

Vołosi (PL)

The five Polish musicians led by violinist Krzysztof Lason won the main prize at the 2011 EBU folk festival with a very unusual yet highly exciting formation consisting of two violins, viola, cello and double bass. Combining a variety of eastern European musical influences to create a uniquely tight sound experience that includes many improvisational components balanced between folk and classic. Not only are the musicians themselves constantly on the move on stage, but their music also displays a powerful and expressive dynamism. The audience cannot escape the fascinating impact of this musical kaleidoscope.

» Further information

Warsaw Village Band (PL)

Grooving without end. The stomping rhythms of shaman drums is mixed with the grating sounds of hurdy-gurdy and moraharpa, overlaid with the richly ornamented melody lines of a fiddle that fuses with the clashes of a cymbal. This is not just about harmonies. The piercingly sharp, throaty Slavic sibilants of the three female singers you would be forgiven for thinking that witches were at work, wandering like ghosts through the Polish night. They have been together for 15 years, naturally mixing traditional and modern, old and new sounds. They play with the reciprocal influences of Scandinavian and Polish music, and are rightly held to be the stars of Polish folk and world music.

» Further information

Tiptoe Bigband (DK)

They first got together in 1994, since when they have united the best jazz instrumentalists around Odense. They are held to be the top musical ambassadors of the Funen region, they tour throughout Denmark and have already produced 4 CD‘s. The Tip Toe Big Band has the typical sound of a large orchestra expanded through various musical experiments and creative musical co-operations with solo instrumentalists, singers, composers and arrangers from a range of different music genres, thus going far beyond the classical big band tradition. This is also the reason for their long collaboration with Harald Haugaard, who invited them to play in the opening concert, where they will be accompanying all the evening’s soloists.

» Further information