A Canadian chamber-folk ensemble and a Swedish singer, who formed a band after a storm grounded her flight, play four-part harmonies on fiddle, nyckelharpa, cello, and bouzouki.
Saturday, October 10, 7:30pm | Pine Plains, NY | $30–$40 advance, $40–$50 door
Skye Consort and Swedish singer Emma Björling play Banning Hall at the Stissing Center on October 10. They draw on the traditions of Scandinavia, Ireland, Britain, and French Canada, with voices, fiddle, nyckelharpa (a Swedish keyed fiddle), cello, bouzouki, and percussion. The set moves from polskas and reels to love songs, hymns, and original pieces, and the arrangements borrow from chamber music themes. Lyra magazine in Sweden called the style "trans-Atlantic Chamber Folk."
The collaboration started by accident. Skye Consort and Björling met in October 2017 in Montréal while working on a project with the early music ensemble La Nef. As she prepared to fly home, a storm in Iceland cancelled every flight from North America to Europe. By the time flights resumed, the band had been started.
Skye Consort has existed since 1999 and has eight albums. Their self-titled album with Björling won the 2020 OPUS Award for best world music album in Québec. A second, "Ode & Ballade," is sung in Swedish, French, and English. About half the repertoire is original.
The band has played the region before, at The Foundry in West Stockbridge, and gave a concert for the Library of Congress in 2024.
Banning Hall, The Stissing Center, 2950 Church Street, Pine Plains, NY. Tickets at thestissingcenter.org.
