♪Traditional folk music♪ [Applause] >> Anna Ekborg Hans-Ers:
Thank you. It's so nice to be here in this
very beautiful building. We had a chance to walk around
a bit before the concert, and it's just amazing. What a place. We are Northern Resonance from
Sweden, and we're going to play some tunes, mostly from our new album that we released about
soon, two months ago. We're currently on our first
U.S. tour, actually, so it's so nice to be here
in Washington. And we started with the opening
track, a tune that I wrote. It was pretty much
one year ago now. I was living out in the
countryside, in the border between Sweden and Norway, in this very small little village
called Vasterhejde. And we're going to continue
with the tune that we wrote together. And we have not
been very lucky with cars. I don't know if you can relate.
We've had some issues. Petrus has this thing that he
forgets to put the lights off in the car. So we have been... Yeah, we were on tour up north
in Sweden one winter, and we had to spend the night trying to get
the car started again, and... >> Jerker Hans-Ers:
And like, two weeks ago, Petrus actually forgot to turn the car off. Yeah, that's a new level. >> Anna Ekborg Hans-Ers:
It was a bit too modern, the car he didn't like. We were stepping out of the car
and we were like, it feels like the car is still running. Yeah. And, JJ here, he has
chopped down trees on one of the cars. And also forgot to
put in the parking brake. So one of the cars ended up
down on the field below our house instead of
on the parking lot. And, I mean, we did
play a concert. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I
was just going to say. >> Jerker Hans-Ers:
We're not done yet. And I put our car on
fire, so I think... Yeah. >> Anna Ekborg Hans-Ers:
Yeah, I was just going to say that we played in Lawrence in Kansas, and this woman came up
to me after the concert saying, "Yeah, after hearing the stories
about the guys and the cars, I think it's better if
you drive the cars." And I said, "Well, I'm telling
the story so I can just, like, leave out everything I've
done with the cars." But we managed to drive in
Australia on the left side without any problems.
Yeah. Well, we were actually driving with some friends and their car broke
down for the first time ever when we were in the car. But I
wouldn't say that's our fault. And we managed to drive
here in the States as well. We were driving in
and out of Chicago. It was... yeah. Wow.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So we kind of wrote
this next tune, I would say, as a therapy session just to... Yeah, just to deal with all of
the bad luck we've had. ♪Traditional folk music♪ [Applause] >> Petrus Dillner:
Thank you. Well, like like Anna said,
we've been driving quite a bit here in the States. We started off in Kansas City,
and we drove up to Minneapolis and down to Chicago.
And then now we're here. We spent some time in
Kansas City because of this conference called Folk
Alliance International. Yeah, it's a great... I mean, if
you haven't been there, you should go. We went
there last year as well. It's this place. It takes
place in this hotel. And you play for booking
agencies and management and other artists as well, and
labels and media and stuff. And like I said, it all
happens in this hotel. You eat there, you sleep there,
and you play concerts in small hotel rooms and you
don't leave the building. And after a week you step
outside and you're hit in the face by a wall of oxygen.
It's a great invention. I think oxygen is lovely. So after last year's
conference, we kind of wrote this tune when we got back
home, just to get it all out. Like the same with the car. Just when things build up
and you just have to... So we we named the
tune "Kansas City." ♪"Kansas City"♪ [Applause] >> Anna Ekborg Hans-Ers:
Thank you. [Applause] There was a tune that JJ wrote to his sister Britta,
Britta Spolska. So how many here recognize the
instruments that we are playing on? Okay, some
people. That's nice. Yeah. We've had like, concerts
where we forget to talk about instruments and people come
up to us and are very angry afterwards. So we thought that
we will tell you about the instruments so you won't
be angry afterwards, hopefully. So JJ here is
playing on a Harding viola. It's a Norwegian instrument and
it has four strings that you play on, and then
it has four or five sympathetic strings that just
sings along when you play. And it has this all beautiful
ornamentations. You usually say like it's
like a violin, but better. Yeah, yeah. And Petrus
is playing on the nyckelharpa or keyed fiddle. It has four strings and then 12
strings that are singing along when you play and you play it
with keys, like you put your finger on the keys instead
of on the string. Yeah. And this instrument and
the Nyckelharpa society. So like everyone who builds it,
everyone who is playing it, the instrument itself, became a
UNESCO World Heritage before Christmas. So that's pretty
cool, right? Yeah. So since Petrus is one of
those who is playing it, that should mean that he is a world
heritage as well, right? [Laughing] And my instrument is a bit
more subtle, like, usually when we have concerts, people
come up to these guys afterwards and want to see the
instruments, but then when they start counting, like how
much I tune, they realize that I'm also special. So
it's a viola d'amore. It has five strings that you
play on, and then four or five sympathetic strings and like
the viola d'amore is, many people like, think about
baroque music or early music when they hear that instrument. And if you have seen pictures
of that kind of instrument, you might see that this one looks
a bit different because original classical version is a bit bigger, and it
usually has six or seven strings and then
sympathetic strings. But this is more we call
it the Nordic version. It's built in Sweden and it's
more like a five string fiddle. So it's more easy to play
this kind of music on. And the sympathetic strings is
tuned like the Hardanger fiddle. So it's more like
the same sound. And it's nice to have a lot
of different instruments. Not all the time. It takes a
lot of place in your home and can be quite hard when
you're traveling. But, it's also nice sometimes
when you get bored of your like, when I get bored of
this one, I sometime borrow JJ's Hardanger fiddle and this next
tune is one of the first tunes that I wrote on that particular Hardanger fiddle, so we
call it "Number One." ♪"Number One"♪ [Applause] >> Jerker Hans-Ers:
So when we write this kind of back home in Sweden, we always try to dedicate it to
friends and family or places that we really like to be. Like to be, like
to be in maybe. And next tune is one of those,
my sister came to me three years ago and said that she was
going to have this kid. Yeah. Which is a really fun thing,
because it was the first kid in our family for a long time. So we all were very
happy for her. And she didn't say it, but
I noticed that, okay, she wants me to write a
tune to this little thing. So and I decided,
okay, let's do it. And the pressure was huge. So sometimes in life, maybe
some of you are like me that you try to not do things until
the very end and then you really, really need to do it. Yeah, I didn't. So because she
got born and after maybe a half year I was done with the first
part and then I couldn't like figure out how to
continue the tune. So I waited for another
like one year maybe. And then my sister came
back to me and said, "You know what? A
new baby is on its way." So now the--the pressure
was even bigger. And sometimes it's just
easier to don't do stuff. So therefore I didn't. So neither the first child or
the second one has a tune yet. But this tune that we
are going to play now was on its way to be
to one person. So therefore I just call it
"Nobody's March." Here you go. ♪"Nobody's March"♪ [Applause] >> Petrus Dillner: Sorry. ♪Traditional folk song♪ [Applause] >> Anna Ekborg Hans-Ers:
So how many here has been to
Sweden? Okay. >> Does IKEA count? >> Anna Ekborg Hans-Ers:
Yeah. >> Of course, yeah
IKEA always [inaudible]. [Laughs] >> Anna Ekborg Hans-Ers:
Yeah. My dream is to play a concert at IKEA. [Laughing] Yeah. Or have like, a house
party at IKEA would also be very fun. But has anyone been to the
county Dalarna or Dalecarlia? Oh, no, it's the best
county in Sweden. [Laughs] I grew up in that county
in a town called Falun. It's kind of in the middle of
Sweden. And you might have seen, like these red houses that
they have in Sweden. Yeah. They are painted with
[inaudible]. The red paint from the copper
mine in this city where I grew up. Yeah. We also
have this Dala horses. These are small horses that you
might have seen also from that region. We also have a very
delicious sausage called Falcore. It's like you
eat it with macaronis. And yeah, it's very good. And in this town, there is a big
copper mine that collapsed many, many years ago. And all that is left is a big
hole in the ground that is called the Great Pit. And we were playing at a
venue nearby the copper mine, a couple of years ago. And the day after, we got very
inspired by this beautiful landscape, and we wrote this
next tune together. ♪Traditional folk song♪ [Applause] >> Petrus Dillner:
Thank you. You know what? We have actually come to
the last tune of this concert. I have to double... Yeah, it's the last. We
have a set list there. It's getting quite old
now, I think it's... Yeah. When you find something
that works really well, that feels good, you kind of keep it. So this is from before
Christmas. It's an encore written,
Silent Night that is just crossed over. And it's
written on the back of a menu from Flutter Box pizza place in Adelaide, Australia. So yeah, they have
a lot of choices. So you've been a
wonderful audience. Thank you so much for coming
and for staying throughout the whole concert. It's a lot more
fun to play when there's an audience. And we would like
to thank Chris for the sound. A big applaud. Thank you. [Applause] And on top of that, we would
like to thank Tia and the whole American Folklife Center for inviting us here to play this
concert. Thank you. [Applause] We will end with a waltz that
we wrote together a few years ago. Thank you so much. [Applause] ♪Traditional folk song♪ [Applause] >> Anna Ekborg Hans-Ers:
Northern Resonance. [Applause]
