Last year’s Telemark Festival featured acclaimed artist and folk musician Annbjørg Lien as festival composer. As part of an international folk music string quartet Lien performed her newly completed commissioned work Waltz With Me. The work was also performed at the Celtic Connections festival in Scotland earlier in the year, and now Waltz With Me is launched on CD.

The quartet is made up of Annbjørg Lien, Hardanger fiddle and violin; Bruce Molsky, violin and vocals (USA); Christine Hanson, cello (Canada/Scotland); and Mikael Marin, viola (Sweden).

Waltz With Me unites four strong performers and their fascinating traditions in a genre-transcending musical melting pot. The free arrangements reflect a long tradition of collaboration, crossover and adventurousness.

“Groups brought together in this way very often cease after the first gig. On this repeat outing, this one sounded like it was finding a groove that´s going places.” – Rob Adams, The Herald (Scotland)

Annbjørg Lien is one of Norway’s most accomplished musicians and an excellent ambassador of folk music. She has been active on the folk music scene ever since she was young, and has won an increasingly wider audience. Through her recordings she has proved herself to be a world musician of the highest calibre. Annbjørg creates modern folk music with international appeal, working together with the very best musicians. She has dared to take folk music into new contexts, performing with compelling style and confidence – and she has a lot in common with her fellow musicians. Folk icon Bruce Molsky is perhaps the most notable American folk musician of today; he has worked with, among others, Solo Cissokho and Ellika Frisell, and hi himself a pioneer in his genre. Mikael Marin is perhaps bet known as a member of the folk trio Väsen, although he has many other crossover projects to his name. Marin became a national fiddler in Sweden in 1983 and was selected to play in a “world orchestra” under the leadership of Leonard Bernstein in 1989. Christine Hanson, originally from Canada, has toured and released recordings for many years, particularly in the USA and Europe. She teaches at Stowe College, Scotland, while at the same time pursuing a career as a freelance cellist.