A new driving force in Nordic world music is the young Danish trio, Dreamers’ Circus. Contemporary and endlessly innovative in their approach, they draw inspiration from the deep traditions of folk music in the region and reshape them into something bright, shiny and new. Dreamers’ Circus are: Nikolaj Busk (DK) on piano and accordion, Ale Carr (SWE) on Nordic cittern and Rune Tonsgaard Sørensen (DK), also of the Danish String Quartet, on violin.

Dreamers’ Circus display inventiveness and talent in their approach to performances that include music from Denmark and Sweden as well as Finland, Norway and the far reaches of the windswept Faroe Islands. The ensemble has won five prestigious Danish Music Awards and were named 2023 Artist of the Year by the Danish national classical radio channel P2, becoming the first non-classical group to earn that honor. The trio has and toured throughout Europe and beyond, with performances in Japan and the Sydney Opera House in Australia. Their first US tour in 2019 opened ears, eyes, minds and hearts. The trio collaborates regularly with the Danish String Quartet and the Copenhagen Philharmonic and performs with other orchestras.

In the 2023-2024 season, Dreamers’ Circus is presented in the United States by Middlebury College Performing Arts Series, Princeton University Concerts, Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix, Cal Poly Arts, Philharmonic Society of Orange County, UCLA Center for the Art of Performance, Noe Music, and the Mondavi Center at UC Davis. Recent US highlights include performances presented by Celebrity Series of Boston, San Francisco Performances, Detroit Chamber Music, La Jolla Music Society, and Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, DC.

In 2020, Dreamers' Circus released their 5th album, Blue White Gold on Vertical Records and was awarded Album of the Year by the Danish Music Awards 2020 and the 2021 Carl Prize for Composer of the Year (Roots music category). Lost Swans was released in 2022 and is available on vinyl as a double-album alongside Blue White Gold. In May 2022, Dacapo Records released Langt ud’ i skoven, a collaboration with Denmark’s DR National Children’s Choir, featuring old Danish children's songs in new arrangements by Dreamers' Circus. In Fall 2022, the trio released Handed On, a published book of 58 of their own pieces of Nordic folk music, arranged for varying degrees of difficulty, along with professionally recorded videos to accompany each tune.

Dreamers’ Circus views their traditional roots as a point of departure and know tradition should not be a straitjacket. This adventurous attitude, coupled with their outstanding musicianship, has brought the band to the forefront of the Nordic folk and global music scene.

Photo credit: Søren Lynggaard