Program Notes for DREAMERS' CIRCUS

Dreamers’ Circus
March 4, 2025
McGuire Theater

Dreamers’ Circus

Performed by:

Rune Tonsgaard Sørensen — violin and other instruments

Nikolaj Busk — accordion, piano, synthesizers

Ale Carr — cittern, kannel, violin and other instruments

Tonight’s performance runs approximately 90 minutes with no intermission.

This evening’s performance will be introduced from the stage by the performers. The nature of Dreamers’ Circus music is essentially spontaneous and the band prefers to change and vary their program from show to show.

Please join us before and after the performances in the Walker’s Cityview Bar.

Dreamers’ Circus acknowledges the support of The Danish Arts Foundation.

Accessibility Notes

For more information about accessibility, visit our Access page.

For questions on accessibility, content and sensory notes or to request additional accommodations, call 612-253-3556 or email access@walkerart.org.

A few words from Dreamers’ Circus

Hello and welcome to our performance as part of our Winter 2025 series of concerts. We are excited to be back travelling and touring internationally after what has been a challenging time for all of us. It’s been a while since we’ve been in the United States….What will you, the audience, think of what we play? How will you react? Well, we’re about to find out….

Firstly, let us tell you a little about Dreamers’ Circus, who we are and what we do.

Our approach to music sees us challenge the norms of the traditional music we were brought up with and attempt to shape it into how we imagine Nordic music can sound in 2025. We certainly do not seek to turn our back on our folk music roots and, having grown up with traditional music, we value it as an important part of our musical make- up. But we also discovered early on that traditional music cannot stay static, that change is inevitable and even, we might argue, beneficial. So, in a sense, we view our roots in the rich traditions of Danish and Swedish folk music as a point of departure and refuse to accept tradition as a straitjacket. We investigate new angles and consciously seek to challenge not just ourselves as performers and composers but also the norms and sometimes even the structures of the music we play. With Dreamers’ Circus, no two performances are quite the same and we enjoy the fact that today’s show can be quite different from yesterdays. We have learned to enjoy our curiosity about the music and have come to value the importance of listening. Close listening to what we each do is an important part of our engagement with the music and with each other. We hope that you, the audience, might also listen closely and join us as we react to one another’s playing and spontaneously respond. Our name hints at the possibilities and magic of the imagination and we hope that you will open yourself up to the colors and images we seek to create with our soundscapes.

Ale, Nikolaj, Rune.

The three members of Dreamers’ Circus first encountered each other at a late night, post-concert jam session in Denmark over ten years ago. They immediately hit it off both on a musical and a personal level. Since then, the band has toured all over the Nordic countries and Europe, they’ve played the Sydney Opera House in Australia and have made a number of tours to Japan. Dreamers’ Circus has shared stages with folk luminaries such as The Chieftains, Sharon Shannon and Vasen and have been invited to compose and perform music for stage and television shows in Denmark. A Danish critic observed that, “playing violin, piano, accordion and cittern they display a playful inventiveness allied with a Nordic sensibility that is at once refined and cool.” 

Dreamers’ Circus have issued 6 CDs:
‘A Little Symphony’ (2013) released on GoDanish GO0913
‘Second Movement’ (2015) released on GoDanish GO0315
‘Rooftop Sessions’ (2018) released on Vertical Records VERTCD112
‘Blue White Gold’ (2020) released on Vertical Records VERTCD122
‘The Lost Swans’ (2022) released on Vertical Records and GoDanish GO0322
‘Handed On’ (2022) released in Denmark on GoDanish GO1424, released in the rest of the world on Vertical Records VERTCD132

To contact Dreamers’ Circus please visit www.dreamerscircus.com or write to Tom Sherlock Management tom@dreamerscircus.com.

About the Artists

RUNE TONSGAARD SØRENSEN (violin and other instruments) is from Roskilde on the outskirts of Copenhagen in Denmark. He started playing violin when he was five years old. In 2001, he founded the Danish String Quartet, which is one of the leading chamber music quartets in Europe. This Grammy nominated ensemble has won many prizes and awards.  Rune’s father is from the Faroe Islands that lie in the north Atlantic between the west coast of Norway and Iceland. His own upbringing was in a family that valued traditional music, song and dance. Before he devoted his life to full-time touring with Dreamers’ Circus and the Danish String Quartet, Rune was leader of the Copenhagen Philharmonic Orchestra while still in his early twenties.
Rune plays a Giovanni Baptista Guadagnini violin which is generously loaned to him by the Goof Foundation. His bow is by Eugene Sartory (1910).

Danish born NIKOLAJ BUSK (accordion, piano, synthesizers) has been a significant figure on the Danish music scene for a number of years now and is in much demand as a composer and music arranger across a number of musical genres. He has won no less than 13 Danish Music Awards for his releases and collaborates with various artists. Nikolaj has written music for other ensembles, choirs, orchestras and theater performances.
Nikolaj’s accordion is by Pietro Mario.

Hailing from the southern Swedish region of Skåne, ALE CARR (cittern, kannel and other instruments) was raised in a family of folk musicians and dancers. His own style incorporates a strongly developed rhythmic drive coupled with a sensitivity that always seeks to serve the music. He is recognized as one of Scandinavia’s most talented folk musicians and leading innovators on plucked string instruments. Also a highly respected composer, he was presented with a Danish Music Award as Composer of the Year in 2015. Apart from his work as a member of Dreamers’ Circus, he also toured with the folk music group Basco. Ale plays a Nordic Cittern, designed by the Swedish luthier Christer Ådin. He uses Thomastik-Infeld strings.

Living Land Acknowledgment

The McGuire Theater and Walker Art Center are located on the contemporary, traditional, and ancestral homelands of the Dakota people. Situated near Bde Maka Ska and Wíta Tópa Bde, or Lake of the Isles, on what was once an expanse of marshland and meadow, this site holds meaning for Dakota, Ojibwe, and Indigenous people from other Native nations, who still live in the community today. 

We acknowledge the discrimination and violence inflicted on Indigenous peoples in Minnesota and the Americas, including forced removal from ancestral lands, the deliberate destruction of communities and culture, deceptive treaties, war, and genocide. We recognize that, as a museum in the United States, we have a colonial history and are beneficiaries of this land and its resources. We acknowledge the history of Native displacement that allowed for the founding of the Walker. By remembering this dark past, we recognize its continuing harm in the present and resolve to work toward reconciliation, systemic change, and healing in support of Dakota people and the land itself. 

We honor Native people and their relatives, past, present, and future. As a cultural organization, the Walker works toward building relationships with Native communities through artistic and educational programs, curatorial and community partnerships, and the presentation of new work. 

Thanks to our Partner

Schubert Club Acknowledgments

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Walker Art Center Acknowledgments

Walker Art Center Producers Council

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Media Partner

To learn more about upcoming performances, visit 2024/25 Walker Performing Arts Season.