The Fiddlers’ Association of Leksand

We are a traditional fiddlergroup from Leksand.

Leksand, situated in the province of Dalarna, is a small town with about 15700 inhabitants. Many of the things that people consider as truly Swedish have their origin and home in Dalarna. The environment makes people visit Dalarna and the hospitable inhabitants make them all welcome.

Dalarna is the land of old customs and traditions set in a beautiful landscape, where the hazy mountains are a shimmering background to the picturesque red cottages. In the dark nights of the winter when the lumber-workers sat in the small and unhealthy cabins in the forest, they got comfort from the fiddle. No marriages or funerals could get on if there wasn’t a fiddle player around, because the tunes were important!

As early as in the turn of the 20 th century, artists and authors from other parts of Sweden and Europe were attracted by the people, culture and geography of the province. The authentic culture of Sweden’s Dala Region (Dalarna or Dalecarlia) is preserved in all its charm, and nowadays there is a whole range of concerts set against a variety of backdrops, from sheltered courtyards and high domed churches to open forest skies and majestic mountains. Music and stunning natural scenery, an unbeatable combination in Leksand!

If you want to find Leksand on the map, find Stockholm first and about 300 km northwest of Stockholm at Lake Siljan you will find the town. Leksand’s fiddlergroup has more than 70 members and about 30 of them play regularly. Our repertoire is mostly from Leksand, but we also play tunes from other areas around Lake Siljan or other parts of Sweden. If you listen carefully, you can hear the dialect in the music and if you are skilled enough, you might even hear in which village the fiddler has learnt to play! The audience listens to us while the folk music bounds us together in a silent understanding.

The fiddle music has existed for us for hundreds of years in Dalarna and it has always expressed joy and sorrow, but at the end of the 19th century the folk music was slowly dying out. Fortunately, the skilled and very famous painter Anders Zorn understood that something had to be done. He started the first Music contest in folk music in Sweden, in the small place called Gesunda outside Mora, in 1906. Thanks to that, the music started growing again.

Swedish traditional music (the Swedish word is folkmusik) is definitely alive today, and there are lots of people all over Sweden who play it. Someone who plays traditional music is called a spelman, plural spelmän (the verb att spela means ”to play (music)”). A typical small festival is the spelmansstämma, plural spelmansstämmor (which means something like ”musicians meeting”).

Every year in summer we have a nice little spelmansstämma in Leksand. There many other spelmansstämmor I Dalarna and Sweden every year.
Look in our “Kalender” (Calendar) and links.

Today and thanks to what happened in 1906, we play our music in churches, barns, and of course festivals both in Sweden and abroad. So Anders Zorn has a special place in our hearts.

You can contact me!
Jobs Maria Larsdotter
Phone: +46705655566
Email: jobsmaria@hotmail.com