Maja & David
Wednesday August 2nd 2017
Date: Wednesday, May 10, 2017 at 8 pm (doors open at 7:30 pm)
Location: Southminster United Church, 15 Aylmer Ave (Bank and the canal). Entry from Galt St.
Tickets: $20 in advance, or $22 at the door
These two master fiddlers come from cultures geographically far apart; Maja from Denmark and David from Quebec, but their inspiring combination of musical heritages shows that music knows no borders. Maja & David are a fiddle, foot-percussion and song duo, in existence since 2012. On stage, the soundscape moves from one fiddle to what sounds like a fiddle quartet with percussion and a lead singer, and, through their own compositions, and the songs and music of their native countries, they have developed an intriguing signature sound.
Maja Kjaer Jacobsen (fiddle, Hardanger fiddle, song, stomp) is a fiddler, a singer, a researcher and a teacher, as well as a composer, arranger and dancer. Especially in the old music and singing traditions of Central Jutland (Denmark) where she grew up, Maja brings back some of the power and spark that older generations carried on in the small communities of Denmark for centuries. She has researched 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. She is also a member of the Scandinavian fiddle trio, Fru Skagerrak.
David Boulanger (fiddles, podorythmie, harmonica, song) is an exceptional Quebecois player as well as a respected jazz violin player, composer and arranger in Montreal. He has gained widespread acclaim for his joyful and superb fiddling; a man of great talent, enthusiasm and humour. David is, perhaps, best known as a member of the legendary Quebecois folk big band "La Bottine Souriante". He was born in 1983 in Saint-Hubert on the south shore of Montreal, where he started to play the fiddle at 8. At 16 he started his first trad music band where he played the guitar, and at university he studied jazz composition, arrangement and violin.
"This is a real feast for fiddle fans. Their two traditions blend sweetly and seamlessly... showing that springy Scandinavian dances can segue beautifully into raucous Quebecois reels, and that drone-rich Danish airs work beautifully with their Canadian cousins." - Stephen D. Winick, The Huffington Post
"Ingenious and very beautiful. Wonderful fiddle duets .... and in addition two exceptional singers"- Bengt Edqvist, LIRA Magazine (Sweden)
"... A sphere beyond time and geography." - Yves Bernard, Le Devoir (Quebec)
You can find the event poster here.