Dance to old-time Scandinavian music with the Nordic Spirit band. The Olympia Timberland Library present local musicians Jeff Anderson and Jane Johnson on Friday, October 12 at 6:30 p.m. Costumed in traditional Scandinavian outfits, the duo will play polkas, waltzes, schottisches, mazurkas and other rhythms. Space will be provided for dancing. If you’re not up to dancing, Nordic Spirit encourages toe-tapping and clapping along.
Introduced to Nordic music through their families, both musicians are self taught. Anderson’s grandfathers played fiddle and Johnson’s father performed on fiddle and accordion. Anderson was featured in Fiddler Magazine in February: “Jeff’s is a stellar example of Norwegian-American music that was once played across the northern United States but is now dying out. He was included in Norwegian musicologist Einar Eimhjellen’s 2000 study of Norwegian music in America. Einar noted that Jeff… has ‘best kept the tradition of the early immigrants from Scandinavia.’”
Johnson learned the piano accordion as a child and was introduced in the 80s to the button box accordion. In the Fiddler interview, Anderson said: “Her fingers just floated over the keyboard, because she played it across the rows, the way you’re supposed to. [We] played late into the night and again the next day. Jane had learned from Norwegian-American Ed Morkin and Norwegian Tor Aage Johansen.” The couple has played at dances, festivals and celebrations around the Northwest since they met in 1999 (they married in 2004). They have recorded CDs as Nordic Spirit and with other bands.
The dance is the first of three world music events featuring local musicians at the library. On November 8, the “Columbia Street Seisiún” (sounds roughly like session) will reunite for a real Irish music gathering. In December, the Olympia Youth Chorus will sing world holiday music.
The Olympia Timberland Library is at 313 8th Ave. For more information, contact the library at (360) 352-0595 or go to www.TRL.org.
