Monthly Archives: August 2012

Byss-Calle stämman

On the third Sunday in August, the little town of Älvkarleby celebrates its famous historic nyckelharpa player: Carl Ersson Bössa, known as Byss-Calle, who lived from 1783–1847. His tunes are among the best beloved in the nyckelharpa canon. I hadn’t been intending to perform, but it turned out that really anyone who comes with an […]

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Drottningholm: the queen’s castle

Gunnar and Maria had the perfect idea for a Saturday outing: Drottningholm, the queen’s castle, is on the other end of the same island, thus right on our way back home through Stockholm. We borrowed their bus passes to get there (and nope, this is not one of the routes where they announce the stops […]

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Island retreat

The way this one came about is: a couple of years ago, Andrea & I were playing Swedish fiddle tunes at the Brattleboro farmers market with Mary & Susan, and someone we’d never met before came up to say that he was visiting from Sweden, and that we were playing tunes from his childhood village […]

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In search of a nordic mandola

Mills has been looking into commissioning a new instrument, so we went to visit one of the most prominent luthiers of the nordic mandola species. Ola Söderström has a workshop in Upplands Väsby (north of Stockholm, between the city and its airport). He picked us up at the train station, and regaled us during the […]

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Views from the train

I don’t know whether anyone besides me will find this entertaining, but I have been having fun with trying to document what we’ve been seeing during our many hours on trains (and buses). Lots of trees and fields, cows and sheep, a tractor, a rainbow, golf courses and football games, bus stops and train stations, […]

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Quick stop in Örebro

We were only in Örebro for a couple of hours, but I thought you might like to see pics of pretty buildings. We had a little picnic on a lawn overlooking the castle, then a wee perambulation around town before it was time to go catch our train. I’m including a pic of calligraphy in […]

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