Two architects of new acoustic music in America, Darol Anger and Mike Marshall, join forces with Sweden's most influential instrumental ensemble, Väsen. Together, these five musicians create a new landscape of traditional sounds that forges the gap between the fiddle and dance tunes of Appalachia and the nyckelharpa and polskas of Sweden. You will discover just how small our Atlantic Ocean really is when you hear The Duo and Väsen weave together centuries old traditional forms from separate continents into such a natural fabric.
Väsen and the Duo have actually been fans of each other for many years before meeting at the Lotus World Music Festival in Bloomington, Indiana in September, 2004 (thank you, Lee Williams). Mike and Darol had already learned a few Väsen tunes from their earlier cds and were just dreaming of one day playing with these guys. So when they were thrown together on stage (at their own request of course) it was obvious to all from the first few notes that something very special was being born here; a connection based on their love for traditional music and this quest for the answer to where it might be heading.
This collaboration reinforces the idea that many musicians are beginning to feel throughout the world today; that there is a global movement towards a new kind of "folk" music potential. This, of course, has been a desire and a dream of all musicians throughout history. In fact, most of the "traditional/folk" forms that we think of today, and love, were in fact a blending of separate musical tradtions. However you define bluegrass or jazz or Cuban or Brazilian music, you are speaking of a moment in time when two or three (or more) musical forms were thrown together and ended up creating something "greater than the sum of" for all to dig: something new that we now reflect on as iconic - "traditional."
With the Duo and Väsen, you have a similar mind set about the potential for creative musicians from separate worlds to work together with joy, understanding and open hearts. The creative and respectful birth of something with roots that reach way back in time to the fathers of their music, while at the same time, pushing ahead towards something new. Something honest and true for musicians of today that reflects what folks "right here, right now" are up to, inspired by, listening to and creating together.
We think the future of our "folk" music, if you have to call it that, could not be in better hands.
Mike Marshall, mandolin
Mike Marshall is one of the most accomplished and versatile acoustic musicians performing today, a master of mandolin, guitar and violin whose playing is as imaginative and adventurous as it is technically thrilling. Able to swing gracefully from jazz to classical to bluegrass to Latin styles, he puts his stamp on everything he plays with an unusually potent blend intellect, humor and emotion - a combination of musical skill and versatility rare in the world of American instrumentalists.
Now living in Oakland, California, Mike grew up in Central Florida, where throughout his teens he played and taught bluegrass mandolin, fiddle and guitar. In 1979, at the age of 19, he was invited to join the original David Grisman Quintet in the SF Bay Area. That association quickly lead to his recording and touring with some of the top names in acoustic music today including Tony Rice, Mark O’ Connor, Stephane Grappelli, Bela Fleck and Edgar Meyer.
Mike has since played on hundreds of acoustic-music recordings both as a featured artist and performer. His 1982 CD, Gator Strut, is a classic example of a new generation of bluegrass virtuoso instrumentalists forging new directions in American instrumental music.
Today Mike can be heard on the Car Talk soundtrack recording every week on NPR along with Earl Scruggs, David Grisman and Tony Rice. In addition Mike composed and recorded the theme music for the San Francisco based radio program Forum heard daily on KQED radio.
One of his more recent CDs is a mandolin duet project with Chris Thile from the group Nickel Creek, entitled Into The Cauldron, on Sugar Hill records. This CD was listed in the top ten of Amazon.com's favorite recordings for 2003.
In 1983, Mike and violinist Darol Anger formed a partnership and established the band Montreux with pianist Barbara Higbie, bassist Michael Manring, and steel-drum virtuoso Andy Narell. The group released five recordings on the Windham Hill label and toured extensively throughout the U.S., Canada, Europe and Japan from 1984 to 1990.
In 1986, while still a member of Montreux, Mike founded a classical string quartet of mandolin family instruments -- two mandolins, mandola and mandocello. The Modern Mandolin Quartet released four recordings for Windham Hill Records that redefined the mandolin in a classical-music setting. In 1995, the Quartet made its Carnegie Hall debut and, in 1996, received a "Meet The Composer" grant from the Lila Wallace Foundation.
Meanwhile, Mike had traveled to Brazil and began a love affair with Brazilian ‘choro’ music, a delightful musical form that combines virtuosic instrumental playing with rhythmically complex improvisations, not unlike bluegrass or early swing music.
Mike embarked on an in-depth study of the style that resulted in the CD, Brasil (Duets). This recording showcases Mike at the top of his form as a mandolinist and features many of his musical pals, Andy Narell, Bela Fleck, Edgar Meyer, bassist Michael Manring, and keyboardist and flutist Jovino Santos Neto.
Mike has continued to push the boundaries of acoustic instrumental music. After tapping Fleck and Meyer for the Brasil (Duets) project, he collaborated with the two masters on a 1997 Sony Classical release titled Uncommon Ritual. The album charted on the Billboard Top Ten Classical Chart, where it remained for more than three months, and the ensemble opened the Chamber Music Series 1998 season at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall. Mike worked with Meyer yet again on the 1999 Short Trip Home, another Sony Classical recording with violin virtuoso Joshua Bell and mandolin wizard Sam Bush.
Darol Anger also remains an important collaborator for Mike. Together they have recorded under the moniker Psychograss with guitarist David Grier, banjo player Tony Trischka and bassist Todd Phillips. In addition the two released several CDs on the Compass Records label with their quartet as well as a live duet CD entitled At Home and on the Range.
Mike has two holiday recordings to his credit: In 1998, he released Midnight Clear, a solo guitar recording, and in 2000 he recorded A Christmas Heritage with banjo player Alison Brown, Darol Anger, mandolinist Tim O'Brien, Todd Phillips and pianist-composer Phil Aaberg. That band, called New Grange, also released an eponymous CD on Compass Records.
As he does so engagingly in music, Mike also applies his adventurous aesthetic to his two principal hobbies: wine making and food. Already known as one of the best cooks in the music business, he has been trading guitar lessons for cooking lessons from Cal Peternell, head chef at Berkeley's famed Chez Panisse restaurant.
Back in the music realm, Mike released a second CD with Chris Thile entitled Live Duets on Sugar Hill Records, as well as a traditional Brazilian CD with his group Choro Famoso and a CD with pianist Jovino Santos Neto, entitled Serenata, featuring the music of Hermeto Pascoal (Brazil's most important musician/composer living today. Mike also released a CD with the Brazilian bandolim virtuoso, Hamilton de Holanda, called New Words (Novas Palavras), and Woodshop, with Darol Anger. Most recently, Mike and Darol released a CD with the incredible Swedish trio, Väsen (also on the Adventure Music label). This five-piece collaboration have recently performed at select music festivals, to overwhelming, enthusiastic response.
He also performs regularly in duet settings with Darol, Edgar Meyer, Chris Thile, Hamilton de Holanda, as well as with his groups Choro Famoso and Psychograss.
A new collaboration brings Mike together with young string virtuosos Alex Hargreaves (fiddle) and Paul Kowert (bass).
Along the teaching front, Mike has created the Mandolin Symposium along with fellow mandolinists David Grisman and Chris Thile. The event is a weeklong educational camp at the University California in Santa Cruz where five of the greatest mandolinists today teach over 150 mandolin students from around the world.
Darol Anger, violins
Violinist, fiddler, composer, producer and educator, Darol Anger is at home in a number of musical genres, some of which he helped to invent. With the jazz-oriented Turtle Island String Quartet, Anger developed and popularized new techniques for playing contemporary music styles on string instruments. The virtuosic "Chambergrass" groups Darol Anger's Republic Of Strings, Psychograss, and the long-lived Anger-Marshall Duo feature his compositions and arrangements. His Grammy-nomimated folk-jazz group Montreux was the original musical model for the New Adult Contemporary radio format. The David Grisman Quintet forged a new genre of acoustic string band music with Darol's “fertile inventiveness, surprising touches and technical mastery” (Boston Herald) often in the forefront.
Working with some of the world's great improvising string musicians, among them Stephane Grappelli, Mark O'Connor, David Grisman, Tony Rice, Bela Fleck and Vassar Clements, has contributed to the development of Anger's signature voice, both as a player and a composer. His work includes recordings, videos, and books of jazz originals and arrangements, and traditional-derived music in many styles.
Anger has produced dozens of critically lauded recordings since 1977 which have featured his compositions and performances. Highlights include two recent recordings by The Republic Of Strings, his current intergenerational group; Heritage, a monumental masterpiece which brought together most of the most important voices in the traditional, contemporary folk and bluegrass music scene; Psychograss and the Anger-Marshall Duo's ongoing iconoclastic string of recordings, which continue to set new standards for the Newgrass/jazz genre; collaborations with Cajun fiddler Michael Doucet (the Grammy-nominated Fiddlers 4), with banjoist Alison Brown, and the String Cheese Incident's Michael Kang; and a recent release Diary Of A Fiddler, which sets Anger in duet with the most prominent and innovative fiddlers of our time.
Anger helped found the String Resource Board of the International Association of Jazz Educators. He has led seminars at the Stanford, Oberlin and Amherst Jazz Worshops, regularly teaches at the Berklee School of Music and the Mark O'Connor Fiddle Camp, and at workshops and clinics from Campo Do Jordao, Brazil to the Music Conservatory at Bremen, Germany. He has released two popular instructional videos for Homespun Tapes, is a Contributing Editor for Strings magazine, and serves on the ASTA Editorial Board.
The recipient of a 1995 California Arts Council Composer Fellowship, Anger was nominated in 1997 for the CalArts Alpert Award in the Arts. He is a McDowell Fellow and received a Composers' Residency from the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. He has been a featured soloist on a number of motion picture soundtracks, and he wrote and performed the score for the Sundance Award-winning film Best Offer. He was the winner of the Frets Magazine Readers' Poll for Best Jazz Violinist for four years running. he is the Music Director of the StringNation Festival, a an annual contemporary music festival hosted by Rutgers University.
Anger's work has expanded not only the acoustic violin's boundaries, but has contributed to the development of violin synthesizer repertoire and technology. His writings on these subjects and various string education issues appear regularly in music periodicals.
Anger' main project is his Republic Of Strings ensemble, with the classical vocal group the Anonymous 4 and chamber music work and recording with pianist Phillip Aaberg and duo work with multi-string virtuoso Mike Marshall. He appears as a guest with a wide array of modern music ensembles from Traditional to Pop.
Väsen – Biography
Olov Johansson and Mikael Marin started playing together as teenagers around 1980. During the early 1980's they would regularly visit Curt and Ivar Tallroth and Eric Sahlström, older musicians who lived nearby in the Uppland region, where they would play and learn traditional music from them. In this way they became a link in the living tradition that Swedish folk music has enjoyed through the centuries.
In 1989, at a music gathering in Røros, Norway, Olov met Roger Tallroth and asked if he would like to try to jam on nyckelharpa and guitar for a bit. Roger declined, intent at that moment on taking a shower. Fortunately, the shower was occupied, so Roger returned with his guitar, and they played for the rest of the day and far into the night. Among the witnesses to this fateful jam session was Olle Paulsson, who thought it was the best music he had ever heard, and made a promise to start a record label if they were willing to be recorded for a CD (and thus Drone Music was born).
The following summer Olov became World Champion of both the modern chromatic and older historical nyckelharpas at the first-ever Nyckelharpa World Championships at Österbybruk, Sweden. The added momentum for the first CD recording, which was entitled "Olov Johansson: Väsen." Väsen is a Swedish word with many meanings: spirit, noise, a living being, essence among the most prominent. It was originally meant to just be an album title, but soon people were calling to book the band "Väsen" and the name stuck.
Initially some traditionalists (or something else, it wasn't many at all) in the Swedish folkmusic community showed some resistance to Väsen. While Olov and Mikael were playing fairly straightforward folkmusic duets, Roger's guitar definitely provided a different twist on Swedish traditional music. Yet it's exactly the guitar chordings and rhythms that also attracted an entirely new audience, and the band's popularity gradually grew, along with their international reputation.
In 1994, with two more studio albums under their belt ("Vilda Väsen" on Drone and "Essence" on the French Auvidis/Ethnic label), Väsen were asked to participate on a project of Swedish rock musician Mats Wester called "Nordman," which featured rock music and lyrics but with arrangements and playing by Väsen. The first Nordman CD was a huge hit in Sweden, and the band embarks on two tours and records a second Nordman CD, playing in front of audiences of up to 25,000 people. On the first Nordman tour they meet drummer André Ferrari and eventually experiment with a drums-and-bass version of Väsen. Ultimately, they settle on André playing hand percussion, and the band officially becomes a quartet in 1996.
In 1997 the quartet goes into the studio and records "Varldens Väsen" ("Whirled" in North America). Tours of Norway, Denmark, Finland, Italy, France, the United States and Canada follow, as does a Swedish Grammy and two appearances on the national radio program "A Prairie Home Companion" in the U.S. In 1999 the band releases their sixth CD, "Gront."
Meanwhile the members of the band were getting older, having babies and facing the challenges of being a musician in the modern age. A widespread U.S. tour in September 2001 had to be scrapped after 9/11. Although the tour was rescheduled for 2002, André's reluctance to tour and economics forced the band to decide to come over as the original trio. The success and pleasure of playing a new set of trio material culminated in this new recording.
Olov Johansson – nyckelharpa
In 1990, Olov became the first world champion of the nyckelharpa. He began to play the nyckelharpa in 1980 as a fourteen-year old, and was named a 'riksspelman' (master musician) in 1984. Olov has studied with the legendary Curt Tallroth and Erik Sahlström. He is regarded as one of Sweden's most prominent nyckelharpa players, and is an inspiration for numerous young performers on the instrument. He is teaching regularly at the Eric Sahlström Institutet.
Apart from his association with Väsen, Olov has also played with groups such as Kronos Quartet, the Nyckelharpa Orchestra, as well as solo performances. He has also recorded and toured with the chart-topping Swedish rock group Nordman, and has played on the albums Early Music (with Kronos Quartet) and his solo project, Storsvarten (released on NorthSide).
Mikael Marin – viola
Mikael is a violist who isn't satisfied with merely playing "second fiddle." His influences are literally unlimited in their scope, and oscillate between Schöenberg and the Beatles. He became a national fiddler in 1983, and was chosen to play in a world orchestra under the direction of Leonard Bernstein in 1989.
When not performing with Väsen, he composes, produces, and arranges music for artists such as Mikael Samuelsson, Nordman, and Kronos Quartet. He composed (together with Mats Wester) the opening music to the World Police and Fire Games in Stockholm, 1999.
Mikael can be heard on several recordings, for example Nordman (with Nordman), Barfota (with Mikael Samuelsson), Ånon (with Ånon Egeland, released on NorthSide), and Flow my Tears (with The Forge Players).
Roger Tallroth – 12-string guitar
With his specially tuned guitar (A-D-A-D-A-D), Roger has developed a distinctive sound of his own. In addition to the guitar, he plays the Swedish bouzoki and octave mandolin. Roger received his first guitar when he was thirteen. Since then, he has studied at Sjövik Folkhögskola and Örebro. He has about 50 followers throughout the world using his tuning, a number still growing. He has given numerous seminars around Europe and the US. Roger has performed together with Nordman, Annbjørg Lien, and the Gunnel Mauritzson Group, among other artists, and has also participated in several stage and theater productions.
Roger's discography includes Nordman (with Nordman), Felefeber, Prisme, Baba Yaga, and Aliens Alive (with Annbjørg Lien), Siluette and Raisu Äut (with the Gunnel Mauritzson Group), The Horse and the Crane by Ale Möller (on NorthSide) and Kat Kombat (Kombat). He also produced the self-titled début album of the group Draupner (on Caprice).