As the daughter of a singer and guitarist, Maja Kjær Jacobsen‘s path to becoming a musician was natural. And we’re thrilled that part of her path will involve coming to Fiddle Tunes in 2017.

At age 14 Maja she took up the fiddle, with great inspiration from the fiddlers performing at festivals such as the mighty Tønder Festival in Denmark, which Maja went to since she was 8 years old. She’s a fiddler, a singer, a researcher and a teacher, as well as a composer, arranger and a dancer.

She is especially interested in the old music and singing traditions of Central Jutland (Denmark), where she grew up. Central Jutland music gives her energy, and she’ll soon publish a book on the subject. When singing, Maja brings back some of the power and spark that the older generations carried on in the small communities of Denmark for decades and centuries. She has searched for and nourished the old ways of singing, and one of her missions is to sing the songs in the old dialects in which they were originally sung. Other than Maja very few people master this form of traditional song in Denmark.

At Fiddle Tunes, Maja will lead fiddle, and Hardanger Fiddle (AEBF#/BEBF#) sessions.