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Handed On
A celebration of New Nordic Music
We are Ale, Rune and Nikolaj and we’re all members of the trio, Dreamers’ Circus.
Our history goes back to 2009 where we met in a jam session at Nørrebro Spilletræf in Copenhagen and played all night long. That became the starting point of a journey of musical explorations for us where we tried to seek out the borders of Nordic folk music and cross them into the unknown. Much of the music we play on stage today might be considered as being experimental or genre-defying - but in recent years we’ve been drawn towards where it all began:
All of us share a deep love and respect for the traditional music that we grew up with in Denmark and Sweden. Folk music is fundamentally a social music, where interaction and transmission is essential for the music to function and survive.
At the same time, another necessity is for tradition to be flexible and adapt so it stays relevant to the people, time, place and context where it exists.
This led us to this project that we call ’Handed On’. We recognise we’re part of an unbroken line of people who have shaped and shared their music across borders in time and space. And without these people, the music that we love so dearly wouldn’t exist today. In an attempt of contributing to the tradition and giving something back, we’ve written and compiled 58 tunes in a more traditional style, ranging from simple beginner tunes to more advanced. Our dream is that these tunes can open doors to this style of music, serving as a source of inspiration to delve further into the tradition and help renew it.
Perhaps you are a music teacher looking for folk music material, perhaps you already are a skilled musician but are new to the genre, or perhaps you’re five years old just starting out on a life-long journey in music. Whoever you are, we hope that you will take in this material, play it the way you feel like and share what you enjoy with others. Ultimately it is the the players, musicians, singers and dancers like yourselves who determine what becomes part of the tradition and what, in turn, will be handed on.
“Folk music is not what it used to be -
and it never has been.”
Torkild Knudsen