Swedish-born cittern maestro Ale Carr is one of the leading string players of Nordic folk music. He has travelled the world performing on stages as diverse as the Sydney Opera House, London’s Royal Albert Hall, the Roskilde Festival and the studio of legendary Japanese anime director Hayao Miyazaki. In 2009, Ale Carr founded the trio Dreamers’ Circus together with Danish virtuosos Nikolaj Busk and Rune Tonsgaard Sorensen, which, in recent years, has pioneered new Nordic folk music internationally.

Ale Carr’s roots lie in Skåne in southern Sweden, where he grew up in a family of folk musicians. His early exposure to live folk music and folk dance still influences his performances and the way he interacts musically with colleagues and friends. With a desire to develop traditional music further, Ale Carr began to compose new music and broaden his artistic spectrum. In addition to his ongoing work as a member of the Dreamers’ Circus, he has worked in various projects and collaborations with the Finnish star violinist Pekka Kuusisto as well as with symphony orchestras, big bands, choirs and chamber music ensembles such as the Danish String Quartet. Ale Carr has also been honoured with a number of Danish music awards, including the Composer of the Year Award and the Artist of the Year Award in Denmark.

The violinist, conductor and composer Pekka Kuusisto is well known for his artistic freedom and refreshing approach to the repertoire. This versatile musician debuted as a violinist in 2022 with the Berlin Philharmoniker and will be appearing in 2023 with, among others, the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra. Featured among the most recent highlights as a conductor are appearances with the Concertgebouworkest, the hr-Sinfonieorchester Frankfurt, the Orchestre de Chambre de Paris, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and the Deutsche Kammer­philharmonie Bremen, whose ›Artistic Best Friend‹ he has been since 2017.

Since 2022, Pekka Kuusisto has been Artistic Director of the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra and for the 2023/24 season, will also be the First Guest Conductor and Artistic Co-Director of the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra.

An enthusiastic advocate of contemporary music, who regularly premieres new works, and as a talented improvisor, Pekka Kuusisto reguarly collaborates with people from across the artistic spectrum. Unfazed by the conventional boundaries of genre, his most recent projects have included collaborations with composer and pianist Hauschka and percussionist Samuli Kosminen, Dutch neurologist Erik Scherder and electronic music pioneer Brian Crabtree, among others. In 2022, Kuusisto will release his first album as a conductor together with violinist Vilde Frang and the Deutsche Kammer­philharmonie Bremen.