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After a short break Helene Blum & Harald Haugaard Band continues their “Light & Decay Tour” at two lovely German summer festivals. St. Katharina Open Air and Musik in Alten Dorfkirchen in the Montabaur region host the Danish band for performances at Saturday 18th and Sunday 19th. The band has now added their Swedish guitar player Mattias Pérez to the quintet and will perform both concerts with this rare but huge and great sounding line up.

More info and tickets:

http://www.kunstkulturquartier.de

http://www.kleinkunst-mons-tabor.de

Lys & Forfald keep getting good feed back. Among the latest reviews are American music magazine Sing Out: “He’s (Haugaard) long being hailed as a virtuoso on his instrument, one who came up early through Danish folk music. But now he’s a man happy in his own skin, with nothing to prove (…) He’s found the depth of feeling to match his prowess, and that raises him to an entirely higher level”.

German music magazine FolkWorld: “As you would expect, this is music of the highest standard”

http://singout.org/2015/04/22/harald-haugaard-lys-og-forfald/

http://www.folkworld.eu/56/e/cds1.html#haug

The great Austrian music festival Glatt & Verkehrt is taking place in July in the region Wachau along the river Danube. The festival offers a great variety of high profiled concerts as well as summer school “Musikantenwerkstatt”. For the third time Haugaard is teaching at the summer school and on Thursday 9th of July he is giving a special concert with singer Helene Blum and legends in Austrian folk music “Tanzgeiger” at the castle in Spitz 20.00.

Tickets and more info at: https://www.glattundverkehrt.at/de/programm/15-helene-blum-harald-haugaard-duo-die-steirischen-tanzgeiger-reunion-daenemark-oesterreich

Harald Haugaard is returning to Japan autumn 2015. As preparations for the tour the agency Mplant has launched a Harald Haugaard web site in Japanese. Get info about Haugaard and the tour in Japanese here:

http://www.mplant.com/harald/

Helene Blum & Harald Haugaard Band is continuing their Light & Decay Tour in the US North West the next week with a return to Astoria Scandinavian Midsummer Festival as well as a two special performances in Portland Oregon.

Check out schedule for more info.

On June 14 Harald Haugaard opens his second fiddle school. The West Denmark Fiddle School takes place in West Denmark, Luck WI (USA) and offers intermediate and advanced class. American fiddler Hanneke Cassel and Finnish fiddler Antti Järvelä join Haugaard as instructors on this new adventure. The school offers two public concerts, Teachers’ concert Tuesday 16 and Finale concert Thursday 18.

More info: www.westdenmark.net

A sold out Odense Koncerthus enjoyed the tribute concert for Danish composer Carl Nielsen Tuesday night and so did the daily news Fyens Stiftstidende who reviewed the concert with five out of six stars and wrote about genius transitions between folk music and classical music.

The concert will be available later on at: https://www.youtube.com/user/Odensesymfoni/videos

The set list for the Carl Nielsen tribute concert Tuesday 9th with Odense Symfoniorkester and Harald Haugaard builds bridges between traditional music and Nielsen’s own compositions.

1. set:

Polka i A (Carl Nielsen) – Vals til Carl (Harald Haugaard) – 2nd Movement of Suite for strings (CN) – Nu lyser løv i lunde (CN) – Pigernes sang (CN) – 1st Movement of 2nd symphony (CN) – Solen er så rød mor (CN) – Suite “Carl Meets Carl” (Christoffer Møller)

2. set:

Niels Malers Vals (Niels Jørgensen) – Tit er jeg glad (CN) – 2nd Movement of 3rd symphony (CN) – Motet #2 (CN) – Den danske sang (CN) – Fordum var der fred (CN) – Polka i A (CN/HH) – Kehraus (CN)

Participants: Odense Symfoniorkester, Filharmonisk Kor, Henrik Vagn Christensen (conductor), Alice Granum (conductor), Fiddlers from Folkalicious, Christoffer Møller (piano), Piotr Stadnicki (fiddle), Anne Sophie Hjort Ullner (sopran), Lucas Bruun de Neergaard (baryton) and Helene Blum & Harald Haugaard Band.

More info: odensesymfoni.dk

As official Carl Nielsen artist with Odense Symfoniorkester Harald Haugaard has been asked to program and perform the birthday program for one of Europe’s greatest composers Carl Nielsen at his 150 jubilee on June 9th. The birthday concert will take place at Odense Koncerthus June 9th 19.30 and will be followed be pop up concert at Odense’s central square Flakhaven. The participants of the Birthday concert is Odense Symfoniorkester and Filharmonisk Kor conducted by Henrik Vagn Christensen as well as the Helene Blum & Harald Haugaard Ensemble featuring piano player and composer Christoffer Møller.

Tickets: 140,- DEK – 260,- DEK @ http://odensesymfoni.dk/Webnodes/da/Web/Odense+Symfoniorkester/KONCERTER?date=2015-6-9

We are pleased to announce that the “Light & Decay Tour” will include a performance at the grand Danish festival Tønder Festival Saturday August 29th with the six-piece line up.

Tickets and more info at www.tf.dk

Efter en forrygende turné i Tyskland med mange flotte anmeldelser og veloplagt publikum spiller Helene Blum & Harald Haugaard Band tre koncerter i denne uge i Danmark fordelt på Jylland, Fyn og Sjælland. Næsbjerghus ved Varde, Sandholt-Lyndelse Kirke på Fyn og Nødebo Kro på Nordsjælland lægger hus til de tre koncerter. Under “schedule” finder man detaljeret info om tidspunkter og billetsalg. Vel mødt!

Helene Blum & Harald Haugaard Band is doing three “Light & Decay Tours” in Germany during 2015. The first one begins Friday 20th and take them to Mühlhausen-Wolfach-Tuttlingen-Dresden-Seefeld (Friesland)-Osnabrück-Wuppertal-Bad Honnef.

The line up for the tour is Helene Blum (vocal & fiddle), Harald Haugaard (fiddle), Kirstine Elise Pedersen (cello), Mikkel Grue (guitars) and Sune Rahbek (percussion).

Lys og Forfald is released today. The album is available as downloads from various dealers. CDs available in Denmark at Stereo Studio, Alstrøms Boghandel in Faaborg or mail order from www.gatewaymusicshop.dk

CDs available in Germany at various music stores including Musikladen in Flensburg or mail order from www.westparkmusic.de

Vinyl from April 13.

The release concert takes place at Slesvighus in Schleswig Saturday 14th 19.00. All three albums from the trilogy will be performed at this special event. The pre sale has closed but there are more tickets for sale at the venue. Prices: 20,-/10,- €. Doors open at 18.00.

In connection to the release of Lys & Forfald Pile House Records is releasing two music videos with Port Orford and Åbne Øjne from the album. Both videos are recorded at Steensgaard castle on Sydfyn by Ard Stürup Jongsma and be watched at Pile House Records’ youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBhyg0Em9NpVOUXqgpzm3Fw

Lys & Forfald is being released Friday 13 but has already got it’s two first reviews.

Austrian music magazine Concerto gives the album the highest note and write “viel Wärme ind Tiefe”.

Nils Thorlund praises the album in the Danish magazine Rootszone and writes “Man kan ikke sidde upåvirket efter gennemlytningen af disse toner – medmindre man er et særdeles følelsesafstumpet individ” (Eng: “You can not sit unaffected by listening through these tones – unless you are a very emotionally blunted human being”) The entire review here: http://rootszone.dk/cd-harald-haugaard-lys-og-forfald/

Helene Blum & Harald Haugaard Band performs three concerts within this week in the beautiful country of Austria as a leg og the “Light & Decay – Tour”. The concerts takes place in:

March 4th: Sarg Fabrik, Wien – March 5th: Juster, Gutenbrunn, March 6th: Altes Kino St. Florian.

The line up is: Helene Blum vocal/fiddle, Harald Haugaard: fiddle, Kirstine Elise Pedersen: cello and Mikkel Grue: guitars.

More info at www.triart.at

Lys & Forfald is being released March 13 and the day after offers a spectacular release concert. As Lys & Forfald is the last album in the trilogy with “Burning Fields” and “Den Femte Søster” Harald Haugaard will perform all three albums in the same order as released together with the Helene Blum & Harald Haugaard Band. The concert takes place in Slesvighus, Lollfuß 89, D-24837 Schleswig and begins at 19.00.

Tickets at http://ssf-billetten.de and starts at 9,- EUR

As official Carl Nielsen artist with the Odense Symphony Orchestra in 2015 it is one of Harald Haugaard’s tasks to draw the attention to the Danish composer Carl Nielsen’s musical roots. One of the results so far is the creating og the Carl Nielsen Folk Band which includes four musicians from the Orchestra and the Helene Blum & Harald Haugaard Band. Last week this great ensemble had it’s first appearance Thursday and Friday night in Odense where the performed some of Nielsen’s songs as well as a bunch of traditional dance tunes. The audience participated the dance, sang a long the songs and put a lot of attention to this “cross-over-band”. The daily news Fyens Stiftstidende reviewed the performance: “brilliant and successful cross over concert with the energetic Carl Nielsen Folk Band”

The band performs next time at folkBALTICA May 10th in Flensborg (D).

Harald Haugaard’s new album “Lys & Forfald” (Eng: Light & Decay) will be released on Friday March 13 2015. The album will be available as digital downloads as well as physical version (CD&LP)

We are pleased to release the new www.haraldh.dk which is the official website of Danish fiddler and composer Harald Haugaard.
Please take a look around.

Tunes are being composed, recorded and mixed. Photos and videos are being shot and edited.
Tours for 2015 are being booked.

Harald Haugaard is preparing his coming album which is set to be released on February 2nd
2015. This album will be the third and last of the trilogy with Burning Fields and Den Femte
Søster as the precursors for this new album. For the first time ever it will be an album
consisting of Haugaard’s compositions only and as it sounds like now the music has developed a lot since the two first albums and the general tone sounds more mellow and deep. The Blum & Haugaard Band is the core of the recordings but guests such as Swedish guitarist Roger
Tallroth, American fiddler Ruthie Dornfeld, Finnish bass player Tapani Varis, Danish pianist
Christoffer Møller and the legendary German ensemble Fraunhofer Saitenmusik have also
contributed to the music so far. Most of the work on the album is going on in Medley Studio
Copenhagen which for has been considered as one of Scandinavia’s finest recording studios.

After a great summer with lot of performances in Europa and North America including a sold out
and successful 6th fiddle school Harald Haugaard is about to close summer activities with a
performance at the Danish folk festival Tønder Festival.

After a break of six years Haugaard is returning to this legendary folk festival when Helene
Blum & Harald Haugaard Band is opening the 40th Tønder Festival Thursday 28th of August at
15.00 at the Open Air Stage. The line up includes all six members of the band counting
guitarists Mikkel Grue and Mattias Peréz, cellist Kirstine Elise Pedersen, percussionist Sune
Rahbek and Blum & Haugaard.

The band is planning to perform a mix of tunes and songs from earlier albums as well as a few
tastes from Haugaard’s coming album which is expected to be released in January 2015.

Except from the performance with Haugaard’s own band he will also appear on stage when he
conducts the folkBALTICA youth ensemble in their concert Sunday 31st at 10.30 am in Tent 1.

Haugaard’s last performance at Tønder Festival goes back to 2008 when his former band Haugaard
& Høirup gave their last performance on Danish ground at the festival’s finale concert.

More info:
www.tf.dk

The schedule for the summer 2014 has been updated. The schedule includes a few performances in
Europe with the Blum & Haugaard Band – among them the opening of Tønder Festival 2014.

Besides that there are guest performances with Tip Toe Big Band, the Danish folk trio
Dreamers’ Circus and Blues Brother Souvenir Show as well as a few solo performances.

In connection to the up coming 10th folkBALTICA Festival German TV station NDR has created a
small portrait on Harald Haugaard and his music. It includes Haugaard’s performances for the
Danish Queen at the 1864 show in Dybbøl as well as a visit in Haugaard’s private house and the
surroundings where he lives.

For the second time Harald Haugaard has programmed the German/Danish folkBALTICA Festival
which. The festival celebrates it’s 10th year anniversary. It opens May 7th in Alsion,
Sønderborg (DK) with a concert by the folkBALTICA Ensemble conducted by Harald Haugaard and
last to Sunday 11th. The festival offers 40 concerts in the region of Sønderjylland/Slesvig.

folkBALTICA: www.folkbaltica.de
NDR: (go 20 minutes into the show) www.ndr.de/fernsehen/sendungen

On April 18th Danes and Germans gather in remembrance of the horrible war about Slesvig
between the Danish and Prussian/German armies in 1864. VIPs from both side of the border such
as H. M. the Queen of Denmark, the Minister President from Slesvig-Holsten and the Danish
Prime minister do speeches for the audience. Helene Blum %26 Harald Haugaard Band perform
selected tunes and songs together with the folkBALTICA Ensemble and Sønderjysk Pigekor which
means that more than 100 artists will be on stage providing music for this special event.
Danish TV2 Syd is broadcasting live: www.tvsyd.dk

More info:
www.1864dage.dk

The Helene Blum & Harald Haugaard Band kicks March off with two gigs in Denmark and continue two German for a return visit to Oldenburg’s Haus des Horens as well as four “new” venues for the band in the South and West of Germany. Before returning to Denmark the band visits Bludenz concert hall Remise” in Austrai for the first time.
Blum & Haugaard finish off the month with a special performance at Sønderborg’s castle in
Denmark. Without the band they accompain Danish star actress Lone Hert’s reading of Herman Bang’s famous novel “Tine” about the 1864 war between Denmark and Germany.

2014 begins with some good news. Helene Blum & Harald Haugaard Band has won the “Eisernen Eversteiner” European Folk Music Award in the 22nd German Folkherbst competition and concert series.
Some of the best and most accomplished folk musicians of Europe are invited each year to compete for the Eiserner Eversteiner award. Nominees are judged by their performances at the Folkherbst concert series in Plauen, where they are evaluated by the audience and a panel of judges.
Helene Blum %26 Harald Haugaard Band’s concert in Malzhaus, Plauen in November 2013 was part of the competition and both the panel of judges and the audience choose Helene Blum & Harald Haugaard Band as this years winners with the highest score ever. The band will receive the award and perform another concert at Malzhaus in Plauen on January 25th.

The rest of the tour schedule for the spring will be uploaded late January.

More info:
www.malzhaus.de

The Nordic Christmas Tour 2013 is coming up. The title of the tour this year is “Ind under
jul” (Eng: Before Christmas) and Blum and Haugaard have put focus on Sweden and Swedish music this year. Top artists from the vibrant Swedish folk scene key harp player Erik Rydvall and cellist Leo Svensson join the tour together with Danish guitarist and member og the Haugaard & Blum Band Mikkel Grue.
Except for one concert in Kerteminde, Denmark the rest of the 12 shows are performed in
Germany.
Please check schedule for tickets and more info.

During November Helene Blum & Harald Haugaard Band will finish the Open Eyes tour with 17
concerts in Germany, Denmark and Norway. The successful “Open Eyes” tour has brought the band
to festivals, clubs, churches and concert halls in Europe and North America during 2013. Nova
Scotian daily news “The Chronicle Herald” reviewed the band’s participating in the opening
concert of Canadian festival Celtic Colours in October this way:

“Upping the stakes even further, Haugaard returned to the stage with singer, fiddler and wife
Helene Blum, and a full band with two guitars, cello and drums. The manpower was as much about
texture as it was volume”

Every year major Candian music festival Celtic Colours invites two unique artists to take on a
leading role in some aspect of the festival as our Artists in Residence. This year’s Artists
in Residence are Harald Haugaard from Denmark and Kimberley Fraser from Cape Breton.

Celtic Colours: “As Artist in Residence, Harald’s insight and expertise has been invaluable in
helping with this year’s focus on Nordic music and dance traditions”.

Harald Haugaard will perform a large number of concerts during the festival with his own band
Helene Blum & Harald Haugaard Band and do various cooperations with local artists at the
festival which takes place at Cape Breton Island October 11th-20th.

More info:<br><a href=”http://www.celtic-colours.com” target=”_blank”>www.celtic-
colours.com</a>

More info:
www.celtic-colours.com

During the summer several of Blum & Haugaard’s performances have been recorded by radio and
TV. You can listen or watch some of these concerts:

Aug 15th 22.05 “Songs an einem Sommerabend” at Bayerisches Fernsehen (TV).
Aug 25th 21.03 “Bardentreffen” at Bayern Radio 2.

Later Hessische Rundfunk plans to broadcast Blum & Haugaard’s concert in Bad Wildungen as
well as WDR TV’s broadcast of the “Songs of einem Sommerabend”. More info about this later on.

More info:
www.br.de

The summer 2013 turns out to be one of the busiest ever for fiddler and composer Harald
Haugaard.

The Helene Blum & Harald Haugaard Band is touring in Germany, Denmark, Austria and the US
during June, July and August and this touring includes major music festivals such as
“Bardentreffen” in Nurnberg (D), “Musikfest” in Waidhofen (AT), “Jam Days” in Odense (DK),
Astoria Scan Fest (USA) and “Songs an einem Sommerabend” at Kloster Banz (D). Performance from
this festival will be broadcasted later this year at German’s bigges’t TV station ZDF.

Besides of performing Harald Haugaard also teaches at the Musikantenwerkstatt in Austria as
well as his own summer school “Haugaard’s International Fiddle School” which takes place in
North Frisia in the German/Danish border region July 28th – August 3rd.

The Fiddle School offers two public concerts: the teacher’s concert in Breklum Kirche Tuesday
the 30th of July as well as the finale concert with 125 students on stage in Slesvighus Friday
the 2nd of August.

After touring in Denmark, Austria, Germany and the UK Blum & Haugaard continue their
successful Open Eyes Tour in the US.

The two Danish artists will perform 18 concerts, give a few workshops and appear live on
various radio stations during June. They open the tour in Wisconsin and Minnesota as duo and
continue in West Coast states Oregon and Washington with their five piece Helene Blum &
Harald Haugaard Band including cellist Kirstine Elise Pedersen, guitarist Mikkel Grue and
percussionist Sune Rahbek.

The tour includes performances at Nisswa Stämna, Portland Scandinavian Midsummer Festival and
Astoria Scandinavian Midsummer Festival.

For more info look at my schedule page.

Harald Haugaard is participating the Warsaw based festival Mazurkas of the World with a couple
of solo performances 6th and 7th of May. The festival presents a large number of local as well
as Nordic artists. Viva Mazurkas! Viva Polska!

More info:
www.festivalmazurki.pl

The “Open Eyes Tour” with Helene Blum & Harald Haugaard Band now continues with 9 concerts
in Germany.

For more info please check my schedule.

As the new artistic director of folkBALITCA festival Harald Haugaard will participate the
coming festival April 17th – 21st with a few smaller features. Haugaard participates the
opening concert in Alsion, Sønderborg Wednesday the 17th, “Geigen der Nacht” in Neukirchen
Thursday the 18th and the final concert “Wehmut ind Hoffnung” in Flensborg Sunday the 19th.
Furthermore Haugaard will conduct the festival’s new youth ensemble at their concert Sunday
the 19th at Flensborghus.

Harald Haugaard was named as the festival’s artistic director in June 2012 and this year’s
festival is Haugaard’s first as artistic director.

folkBALITCA festival is based on the border region of Germany and Denmark and is known for
it’s innovative and creative profile and has Poland and Polish music as main focus this year.

More info:
www.folkbaltica.de

Helene Blum & Harald Haugaard continues their Open Eyes tour in Austria. The Blum &
Haugaard Quartet performs in Modling, Gutenbrunn, Feldkirchen and Salzburg March 14th – 17th.
Besides og that Harald Haugaard has given a workshop on traditional Danish music at the
Universitat fur Musik und darstellende Kunst in Vienna.

The line up for the tour is Kirstine Elise on cello, Mikkel Grue on guitars and Blum &
Haugaard.

More info:
www.triart.at

Harald Haugaard is performing five concerts with youth folk ensemble Folkalicious and youth
big band FAUB.

Folkalicious is a youth folk ensemble with 20 students from different music schools. They
perform a mixture of traditional and contemporary folk music and Harald Haugaard is their
artistic director.

Folkalicious and Faub with their conductor Torben Sminge is joining each other in an
experimental cross over between genres and musical styles.

All five concerts are happening at small village halls on Fyn.

More info:
www.facebook.com/syddanskfolkemusiktalentskole

TV2-Fyn is launching a new program named “Tjek på årtiet” (ENG: “Check the Decade”) which
contains stories and information about food, clothing, music etc in different decades of the
20th century.

Haugaard joins four of the programs to play and talk about folk music and things, persons and
society related to this. Haugaard’s parts are created at Carl Nielsen Museet in Odense and the
first program is shown Tuesday 26th at 19.55 on TV2-Fyn.

More info:
www.tv2fyn.dk/article/391396:Tjek-paa-aartiet

This new theatre play with music of Harald Haugaard is getting great reviews in the daily
Danish news.

Frederiksborg Amts Avis: 5 out of 6
Jyllands Posten: 4 out of 6
Kulturkongen: 5 out of 6
cphculture.dk: 4 out of 6
Politiken: 4 out of 6 – “Excellent new folk music of Harald Haugaard”

Copenhagen based theater Riddersalen is setting up a new version of Henrik Ibsen’s famous
drama Peer Gynt. The play is referring the original play but is to be considered as a new and
different version.

Harald Haugaard has been asked to compose music for this new piece which contains songs, dance
music, underscores and various sounds. Harald Haugaard has produced much of the music and
sounds with “natural instruments” such as stone, saw and wood mixed with string instruments.
Part of the music is recorded with Swedish guitar player Mattias Peréz and viola d’amore
player Sophia Stinnerbom.

Peer Gynt – Off Piste is playing at Riddersalen Feb 15th – March 23rd.

More info:
www.riddersalen.dk

That was 2012! A great year. Touring with “Den Femte Søster” in Europe has taken up a lot of
time with more than 120 performances during the year. And in the end she received two Danish
Music Awards.

The fourth Haugaard’s International Fiddle School was held with success in August and the
Nordic Christmas tour in December made a perfect end to the year.

2013 will provide a lot of interesting and creative projects which we look forward to inform
about later.

The first performance of the new year takes place January 24th in Odense where Helene Blum is
releasing her new album “Men med åbne øjne”. Tours for 2013 will be announced end of January –
there might be a good chance that we will do a concert near you in 2013.