Trio Mio / Danish-Swedish roots band combines folk, classical, jazz influences

"Roots music can be a springboard to many worlds, touching on everything from pop to classical," says the British world music website GlobalVillageIdiot. "Keeping a grounding in there isn't always easy, but Danish fiddler Kristine Heebøll has achieved an excellent balance with her debut, Trio Mio. Working with bouzouki/guitar player Jens Ulvsand and keyboard player Nikolaj Busk as a core, she's created a warm, inviting work whose heart is in Danish folk music."

"Glade Herte" (music from Højby stævne 2004)


Kristine Heebøll tells a writer for Global Village Idiot how the trio got together:

Nikolaj heard me playing with HeebøllVintherDuo on the Tønder Festival, and asked me to play with him for his exam on the academy of music in Copenhagen. After this we met a couple of times just for fun and to play some of my tunes, arranged for piano and violin. The same autumn I took classes in the Carl Nielsen Academy with Jens Ulvsand as a teacher, and we played well together from the start. So therefore I went to Sweden and visited him and we played both his and my tunes. I had these two "swinging" dates at the same time, and I just had to try to combine them. And this trio could easily cope with playing most of the tunes on my new record.

More from the members of Trio Mio from an article in RootsWorld magazine of New Haven, Conn.:

"The tradition is not really a big part of my musical consciousness," says Nikolaj Busk. "For me, it is enough to be aware of the style we are playing as long as I feel I can contribute something personal within an understanding of the music. I love all good music - jazz, electronic, classical, rock - and I love traditional music. I lean on various sources when I'm composing. The music I compose reflects what I am listening to at any given moment. It's a periodic thing."

Jens Ulvsand has a slightly different view of the tradition, for though he did not grow up with it, he has a clear attitude to traditional music. "If, for example, I'm composing a waltz, it is important to me that people can actually dance a waltz to my tune. And the same goes for other types of dance tune. I play a lot of traditional music too, so it means a great deal to me, even though I did not pick up the music from my own family members. On the contrary, I began playing music because I liked rock n' roll. When I was 25, I thought folk music sounded pretty corny, but that changed."

Kristine Heebøll has roots in traditional music, and, as she puts it, "I grew up with the tradition in my backpack, so to speak, so it is always with me to some extent. I don't necessarily think of the tradition when I'm composing, but it tends to define the tune structures and their contexts - whether they come out as a waltz, a polska, a march or something completely different. In recent years I have been composing very different things, more soundscapes and atmospherics, experiments that seem to rub off on everything else I do."