Biography
About Jensen & Bugge
firstCAccordion player Mette Kathrine Jensen Stærk and violinist Kristian Bugge formed the folk music duo JENSEN & BUGGE in 2001. Since then they have played swinging and energetic Danish folk music, at dances and concerts in Denmark, the USA, Canada, the Faroe Islands, Norway, Sweden, Finland, South Korea and Poland. They have both previously received awards individually and as a duo they received the “Tradition Award” at the Danish Music Award Folk 2012.
The two musicians already met as children, when they grew up only three km from each other, south of Vejle, where they also went to folk dancing in the same association. Even though they were on the bus at the same stop for most of school, it wasn’t long before they struck up a conversation and discovered that they shared an interest in playing folk music. It was actually only when they ended up in the same class on the folk music degree at the conservatory in Odense in 2001, that they really got to enjoy each other’s music. That very same year they formed this duo.
JENSEN & BUGGE have extensive experience in and are passionate about playing for dancing, both together and separately or with other musicians. It has become the duo’s specialty and trademark and from that arose the idea for what was to become the duo’s first release, the DVD, “PROJECT DIALECT”.
But both Mette and Kristian have previously released CDs under their own names (with each other as contributing musicians) and with other groups. On the occasion of the duo’s 10th anniversary, the CD “Sea and Land – 10 years of Danish traditional music” was released in 2011, with guest musicians Morten Alfred Høirup (guitar & vocals), Bjarke Kolerus (clarinet) and Thomas Hedegaard (double bass).
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 published.
From 2008 onwards, Jensen & Bugge have played many tours in the USA – both as a duo, but also together with the aforementioned Dwight Lamb. The story of how two young Scandinavian folk musicians out on the prairie found an old accordion player and fiddler with a large Vendsyssel repertoire spread far and wide! Even at a French Canadian festival, Mette heard the story from a Scottish accordion player, who had heard the story in California. Amazed, Mette could tell that it was her and Kristian meeting Dwight Lamb that the story was about.
In the summer of 2015, the CD “Slid din tid” was released, which for the first time was a collaboration with the guitarist Morten Alfred Høirup. It was so much fun, so no doubt it will continue… In any case, there are currently many new ideas on the desk and I wonder if some of them will come to fruition.
In 2021 the duo celebrated their first 20 years together with the album “Greatest Hits”, a collection of new recordings of some of Denmark’s biggest folk hits. Find the album on CD, LP and streaming 🙂