"I surrender unconditionally to these master musicians. The worn concept of tradition and innovation have rarely been used as smart as this" – LIRA

From the moment Kevin Henderson, Olav Luksengård Mjelva and Anders Hall of The Nordic Fiddlers Bloc first played together in 2009 they felt a particular chemistry in the sound they created.

Some seven hundred gigs later, playing across Scandinavia, mainland Europe, the U.S. and the UK, that chemistry continues to draw the trio together.

Passion is a word that comes up often in conversation with Henderson, Mjelva and Hall. It’s a word that lies behind the trio’s determination to find exactly the right tunes to play and exactly the right way to play a certain phrase (Henderson has been known to find forty different examples of them playing the  same motif stored on his mobile phone from rehearsals). Passion for the music they make is also what makes them endure forty-two-hour flights that should only have taken two – to – three hours to get to a concert rather than let the promoter and audience down.

Hundreds of tunes have been tried and laid aside in The Nordic Fiddlers Bloc’s quest for the music which on two albums, their self-titled debut from 2011 and Deliverance, from 2016, has charmed listeners in the same way that their live performances beguile and satisfy.

In the beginning they were intrigued. For Henderson, who grew up in the fiddle-rich tradition of the Shetland Islands, there was a mystery in hearing his Scandinavian colleagues harmonise with one another. Although Fiddlers’ Bid, the Shetland group he has played with since his teens and continues to work with, create a harmonious, four-fiddle sound, the Swedish tradition of having one fiddle play a melody and another shadowing it with a harmony line, was something new to him.

The jamming sessions that led to the threesome coalescing into a group showed them that they could not only create a unique sound, they also had a richness, helped by their use of standard fiddles, octave fiddle, viola and Hardanger fiddle, that has led to them being likened to a string quartet rather than just a trio.   

Folk music promoters and festivals internationally have picked up on the Bloc’s uniqueness. They have played at major events including Tønder Festival in Denmark, Scotland’s mammoth Celtic Connections winter music festival, Cape Breton’s prestigious Celtic Colours, and the annual A Celtic Christmas Sojourn in Boston.  

Recognition, including a Norwegian Folk Award and a place in Songlines magazine’s Top of the World selection for their first album, has come their way and as fellow musicians including Dutch jazz violinist Tim Kliphuis invite them to participate in events such as his Rotterdam Fiddle Weekend, the trio have opened their ears to future possibilities in the jazz and classical spheres.

As dedicated tradition bearers, they have also created their own annual fiddle camp, which has taken place in Norway (2018) and Sweden (2019) and is due to visit Shetland next, while seeking out the tunes that will emerge on their much-anticipated third album in 2020.

"On the evidence to hand, pure fiddle doesn´t get much better than The Nordic Fiddlers Bloc." Folkworld

Balladeste - Violinist Preetha Narayanan and Cellist Tara Franks  came together through an understanding of their parallel paths from a classical background to a current practice of collaboration, research, and improvisation. Having developed a duo identity born out of their trio Quest Ensemble, they have created a unique sound of their own and way of working with mutual resonance.  Writing through playing, improvising, and finding a shared language without notation, the duo explore the versatility and sound potential of just two string instruments as a band.  They merge their varied musical experiences to create compositions that are vibrant and experimental yet melodic and filmic in quality.

Having integrated their duo repertoire into Quest Ensemble performances at venues including Wilton’s Music Hall, Vortex Jazz Club, Southbank and Union Chapel, the duo have received high praise from listeners for their engaging interaction.

With a collective array of collaborations and commissions including working with visual artist/dancers; Lucy Steggals,  Somang Lee,  Ruth Pethybridge,  and renowned UK artists  Oi Va Voi, Talvin  Singh, Bernhard Schimpelsberger,  Shammi Pithia and Kate Tempest, their varied work and love of collaboratively creating feeds into their process and performance dynamic as a duo.

Jnr hacksaw  has been a stalwart of the UK underground scene for over 20 years. Originally a member of Bristols legendary free party collective  Electric Orgasm  then progressing into producing the new Electrobreaks sound, playing parties all over the world including the USA and Japan alongside heavyweight artists such as Tipper and  Si Begg. Jnr was also resident at the cutting edge Elecrobreaks night Trigger early adopters of the now ubiquitous Funktion one sound systems .


Jnr has spent the last 3 years coding his own performance sequencer, born out of frustrations with the non real time graphical a system used by everyone. His sequencer enables him to improvise complicated micro edited music on the fly with nothing pre-prepared. In fact the sequencer has no saving functions at all.


“I wanted to re-connect with music without anything getting in the way of pure expression in the moment, as musicians have been doing for millennia but accessing the sonic pallet of the present and future”

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