Skaran

Skaran met in 2008, when they studied traditional music together at The Royal University College of Music in Stockholm, Sweden. What started as a project just for fun, doing coctail gigs and playing all sorts of music (including ABBA and The Beatles!) soon ended with Skaran finding some great grooving and chemistry together and becoming one of the most popular bands playing concerts and for dancing at different folk festivals in Sweden.

Mixing their different influences from Scandinavian and Breton trad music, other world music, chamber music, rock and pop, Skaran creates their very own musical playground where they constantly challenge themselves in exploring the possibilities of their instruments and their setting. Their knowledge, respect and love for traditions shows in that the melody and the dance groove is always in the forefront, whereas the room for experimenting with harmonization, dynamics and orchestration, improvising and using elements from other genres is endless! And the sound of these three quite rare instruments together really create a very special musical world, with soft beauty and raw power existing side by side.
Through their open-minded and playful approach and their sincere and warm stage performance they have amazed audiences both in Sweden, France and the US, and with their fresh debut album just out, tours in Bretagne, the US and Canada, and Scandinavia of course, are up next.

The members of the band are some of the most sought-after musicians at the Swedish folk scene right now:

EMILIA AMPER is one of the leading nyckelharpa players in the world today and winner of the World Championships of Nyckelharpa 2010. In 2011 she also won the Spellemannsprisen (The Norwegian Grammy) and was nominated for two American Grammy awards together with The Trondheim Soloists, Gjermund Larsen and 2L. She was also nominated as Artist of the year at The Swedish Folk- and World Music Awards.
Amper has a broad musical background (as an instrumentalist, singer and composer) and education and has performed all over the world both solo and with different Nordic folk music and dance groups (like Skaran, ODE, RESiDANS and Blink), Persian classical musicians, pop/rock and jazz musicians (such as Jon Lord from Deep Purple) and as a soloist with the world famous chamber orchestra The Trondheim Soloists. Her playing style has been described as dynamic, elegant and groovy.

ANNA ROUSSEL is a Wooden flute player from Brittany in France, who fell in love with Swedish music and moved to Sweden in 2006. A highly expressive, sensitive and groovy player, improviser and composer of both Breton, Irish and Swedish folk music, with a diploma in Breton folk music and a Bachelor in Swedish folk music at the Royal University College of Music in Stockholm. She plays with different Swedish folk bands, in theatre projects, with Persian singer Bahram Bajelan, Indian singer Shipra Nandy, the jazz saxophone player Jonas Knutsson and has become a renowned flute player on the Irish music scene in Sweden. Her sound is a subtle mix of all the diverse musical interests and the deep knowledge she has in both instrumental technique, playing for dancing, and the different musical styles she has met and studied through the years.

JONAS BLECKMAN is the cellist of the new generation, with an outstanding musical energy and playfulness. Through his expressive, varied and groovy playing style, he has rapidly established himself in the Scandinavian folk scene as well as in other genres like pop/rock, jazz, covers and world music. Together with the fiddler Eva Karlsson he won the national Norwegian folk music competition "Landskappleiken" in Geilo 2009, playing for a couple dancing. Bleckman also plays with the oriental ensemble Sirocco, Mats Berglund Trio, Sw(f)Est, Nord String Quartet, Paradoxical Undressing and Jens Comén among others.