Morten Alfred Høirup

From March 20th to April 10th 2013, I will tour in Australia and New Zealand with the Danish band, Himmerland. The tour will take us to The National Folk Festival in Australia’s official capitol, Canberra, The Swedish Church in Melbourne, as well as a number of venues and folk clubs that they meet on their way. More info: www.himmerland.it or/and: www.folkfestival.org.au

– It is a huge honor and with joy that I congratulate this years winner of Danish Music Award Folk Prize of Honor, musician, composer, project manager, radio host, politician and SO much more – MORTEN ALFRED HØIRUP!

Those were the words when spokesman Henrik Jansberg from the Danish Music Award (Danish “Grammy”) -commitee revealed this years winner. And the winner – that was me myself – was very happy and smiling while concluding that working with roots and folk music has grown more popular since the 80’s when a girl friend had called me a “kind of out cast”, when I told her that I was making my living from playing folk music.

I am so lucky that I have had the privilege of recieving all in all eight Danish Music Awards during the years, including one as “Danish Folk Composer of the Year 2004”.

More info at: www.folkemusik.dk

Now it’s here, the new album, “Himmerland – New Roots Music from Denmark”

The music was composed by Ditte Fromseier (Violin, vocals), Eskil Romme (Saxophone, vocals), Andrzej Krejniuk (Electric bass, vocals), Ayi Solomon (Percussion, vocals) and me. Aditionally the bands recorded a few old Danish songs and a traditional ballad from the medeival times, all in new arrangements.

In August the band presented the album for the audience at four festivals in four countries in only eight days. It’s was an amazing tour that brought us to Tønder Festival (Denmark), Alkantara Festival (Sicily, Italy), Koktebel Jazz Festival (Ukraine) and Urozhai Internatiional Festival (Moscow, Russia). Later in 2012 we brought the new album to Chile, Skotland and Greece. More info: www.himmerland.it.

Check the band on Youtube.com: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lwpc3F7IUCs

When Karl Skaarup (89 years old), Kristian Bugge (33 years old) and I (51 years old), gets on stage together, we are speaking about a rather unusual cooperation between three generations of Danish folk musicians.

Thy-musician Karl Skaarup (accordion) has played for dances and parties for more than 80 years, Kristian Bugge (fiddle) is one of our most powerful and buisy younger folk musicians, and I myself has been traveling with my music all over the world.

Together the three of us are playing for traditional Thy-dances in city halls, culture houses and other venues around Denmark (See: “Tourdates”). Skaarup has been playing for dances ever since he was 4 years old, Bugge has specialized in traditional dance tunes and musical dialects from all over the country, and I grew up playing in my fathers dance band during the 80ties and the 90ties.

Links: www.kristianbugge.com
Booking: mortenalfred@gmail.com