Jensen & Bugge

– new musical dialects

Harmonica player Mette Kathrine Jensen Stærk and violinist Kristian Bugge formed in 2001 the folk music duo JENSEN & BUGGE. Since then they have played swinging and energetic Danish folk music, at dances and concerts in Denmark, USA, Canada, Faroe Islands, Norway, Sweden, Finland, South Korea and Poland. They have both previously received awards and received as a duo most recently the “Traditionsprisen” at the Danish Music Award Folk 2012.

The two musicians already met as children when they grew up only three km apart, south of Vejle, where they also went to folk dance in the same union. Although they were on the bus at the same bus stop during most of the school hours, it took a long time for them to talk and find that they shared the interest in playing folk. In fact, it was only when they ended up in the same class at the folk music line at the conservatory in Odense in 2001 that they really enjoyed each other’s music. That same year, they formed this duo.

JENSEN & BUGGE has a lot of experience in and is passionate about playing at dances, both together and individually or with other musicians. It has become the duo’s specialty and brand and from that came the idea, into what was to be the duo’s first release, the DVD, “PROJEKT DIALEKT”.

But both Mette and Kristian have previously released CDs in their own name (with each other as contributing musicians) and with other groups. On the occasion of the duo’s 10 year anniversary, in 2011 the CD “Hav og Land – 10 år med dansk traditionel musik” was released, with guest musicians Morten Alfred Høirup (guitar & song), Bjarke Kolerus (clarinet) and Thomas Hedegaard (contrabass).

In August 2011 during the big annual Tønder Festival, they also released the CD “Dwight Lamb, Jensen & Bugge live in Denmark 2010”. And in the summer of 2014, the sequel “Dwight Lamb, Jensen & Bugge live in Denmark 2013, – part two” was released.

From 2008 onwards, Jensen & Bugge have played many tours in the US – both as a duo, but also with the aforementioned Dwight Lamb. The story of how two young Scandinavian folk musicians in the prairie found an old player with a large Vendsyssel repertoire reached far – even at a French Canadian festival, Mette heard the story from a Scottish harmonica player who had heard the story in California. Astonished, Mette could tell that it was her and Kristian that the story was about. At a festival on the west coast of the United States, Kristian met a beautiful violin-playing woman with whom he is now married.

In the summer of 2015, the CD “Slid din tid” was released, which for the first time was a collaboration with guitarist Morten Alfred Høirup. It was so much fun, so it didn’t go on … At least there are a lot of new ideas on the desktop right now and not some of them will come true.