In the middle of a lovely summer with lots of Danish folk music

I'm struggling with a bit of jet lag these days and it's not the funnest thing to be honest. Fortunately, there is a good reason why I feel this way, because I have just returned to Denmark after a good and meaningful tour with the trio Jensen, Bugge & Høirup, in the American Midwest,

There we played a number of very different concerts, partly as a trio, and partly together with our friends and colleagues, the 85-year-old fiddler and two-string accordion player Dwight 'Red' Lamb from Iowa, and the South Dakota fiddler Bill Peterson – people for whom I have great respect and with whom I have played on several occasions.

The journey first went to the American-Scandinavian festival Nisswa-Stämman in rich Minnesota, and then to various venues, partly in South Dakota, and partly in relatively poor Iowa, including Daneskerbyen Elkhorn. It is there where they have imported an old Danish windmill, known among other things. from a couple of really fun cooking shows with the brothers Price.

Mette Kathrine sits in our green room with her little son Emil, who is sleeping, while 85-year-old Dwight looks on. There is a quarter of an hour until we have to go on stage and play 15 minutes, as part of a larger presentation concert with many bands.

The trip was a nice mix of good meetings with new people, a long series of concerts at venues and in radio & TV studios, and exciting experiences (such as the time my hosts in Nisswa and I had close contact with a huge black bear in their garden one evening ). And then we had Mette Kathrine's 14-month-old son Lille Emil along, and it was really nice, but also quite intense, because such a little cousin does not necessarily have an easy time understanding that mother is also at work - and what do you do then?

Here is a video of our first concert at Nisswa-Stämmat in June 2019.

We were back home in Denmark on 18 June, and now I am struggling so hard to get my circadian rhythm under control before I go on to Canada on 9 July, again together with the violinist Kristian Bugge.

Scandinavian String Alliance is getting ready for a 3 week tour in Canada, from Vancouver BC in the west to Prince Edwards Island in the east.

This time we travel together with the pan-Scandinavian trio Mrs Skagerrak, with whom we will tour for 3 weeks on the Canadian west and east coast in the tour collaboration Scandinavian String Alliance.

We visit a number of venues and festivals, and look forward to trying out our brand new joint repertoire, just as it will be exciting to spend such a long time together for the first time. Will it work as we hope? How will the audience receive us? Will it be something we have to repeat?

We'll know a lot more about that when we get home at the end of July - right now I'm just super busy rehearsing our new repertoire and getting ready for another trip across the Atlantic.