Mosquito Gathering

From Dalarna to the USA on the wings of a mosquito

After more than thirty years with music mostly written by someone else, I want to spend more time writing my own songs. It’s a lengthy process because the inner critic, who has heard so much well-written music, works very hard. That’s why the award I received in The Mike Auldridge Instrumental Composition Contest organized by the DC Bluegrass Union is extremely important to me. My composition Mosquito Gathering won first prize, and I see that as great encouragement to continue doing something as personal as sharing my own work.

I want all of my compositions to have a story. It makes it easier for the listener to identify with the ones without words, and I believe the experience of such music is then stronger. This is the story of Mosquito Gathering.

Listen to “Mosquito Gathering” as you like: in the dark, while reading the story, or as a video clip (below).

Five-string violin

In 2021 I bought a five-string violin built by the Swedish maker Per Hardestam. I write more about it here. Together with the finished guitar album Overtones, this was the impulse to take up violin more intensively again. I started practicing more, arranging, composing and also exploring. Among other things, I became enchanted with the atmosphere of Scandinavian fiddle music, which reminds me of Irish fiddle music. Traces of both can be found in bluegrass, and I think that’s why the Scandinavians are so close to this genre.

Måstäpp

The very next summer I went to Sweden again for the Torsåker Bluegrass Festival, where I performed and led a violin workshop. Before another festival in Norway, where I played with my band New Aliquot, I had a couple of days off, so I headed northwest to Lake Siljan in the Dalarna region. It’s an area with a very strong tradition of Swedish music. In the village of Gesunda, in a place called Måstäpp, there was even the first competitive meeting of Swedish folk fiddlers in 1906 under the auspices of the painter Andres Zorn.

I found the place, and even though I was there alone, I realized one of the funny phenomena of summer in Sweden: even though you’re lonely almost everywhere, you’re never alone for long. It’s only a matter of moments before you’re discovered by mosquitoes! 🙂 So I quickly escaped to my car and found a place to spend the night. With the sounds of Lake Siljan and a view of Gesundaberget Mountain, I played the bottom strings of my violin for long minutes. That evening, the theme for the overture and conclusion of Mosquito Gathering was created.

Mosquito Gathering

I worked on the piece over several winter months and I must admit that it was a lengthy and sometimes unsatisfying process. I was composer, arranger, performer, music critic and listener all in one. Everybody wanted to be satisfied and so it was necessary to record every new idea, practice it for a while, re-record it, forget about it a bit, listen to it, and evaluate it.

I wanted to imprint several elements in the piece: the calm before the arrival of the mosquitoes and the subsequent escape from them, the rhythm of the typical Scandinavian dance “polska”, and also the microtonality (to the unaccustomed ear it sounds like playing out of tune) that is typical of folk music perhaps all over the world, including Scandinavia. At the same time, the piece should not be too complicated and too long, it should be easy to listen to for a bluegrass listener (for whom I play most often) and I should be able to play it myself. The title refers to the place Måstäpp, where – instead of old-time fiddlers – I experienced a gathering … of you know who 🙂

Zetterlund, Griffin, Kozák

This year (2024) I was invited to teach fiddle at the Grenna Bluegrass Academy – a three-day workshop held before the Grenna Bluegrass Festival. We were to perform there as a trio with my teaching colleagues and friends Magnus Zetterlund and Hayes Griffin, whom I met in Torsåker in the summer of 2022 and made several videos with at the time. Both Magnus and Hayes are excellent musicians with musical feeling and experience, but I’m also very impressed by their work ethic.

For our performance at the festival I arranged Mosquito Gathering, because there is no better place to play the song than Sweden. After the festival, we took two days to record the song and also made a few more videos. Magnus’ brother Martin Zetterlund joined us and thanks to his great work behind the camera and in the editing room, my first professional music video was created 🤩. It was filmed in a place called Girabäcken right on the shores of Sweden’s second-largest lake Vättern.

Mike Auldridge Instrumental Composition Contest

In September 2024 we went with Radim Zenkl to the biggest bluegrass event of the year – IBMA World of Bluegrass. There I learned about a competition for instrumental songwriters organized by the DC Bluegrass Union. I’m not the competitive type, but the opportunity to have my work judged by an informed panel in a blind judging process (the judges don’t know the names of the contestants) appealed to me. For a long time, nothing surprised me as much as the news that then came in early November: Hi Ondra. Your tune Mosquito Gathering has won 1st place in the Mike Auldridge contest. Congratulations! You can find more about the competition and other award-winning songs at dcbu.org.

I must share here a lovely congratulations from a Swedish fiddler from my class at Grenna Bluegrass Academy.

Congrats! I don´t quite get it though 🤔 A Czech comes to the area very close to my hometown Malung, where I grew up. He makes music that has the very right sound and color and makes me want to dance “polska” the way we do in that area and also makes me longing for home. Then he brings his tune from Dalarna over to the US and wins a bluegrass competition! How is that even possible??😄 Awesome!😄😄🤣🥰

Third solo album

The recording of Mosquito Gathering in the “ZGK” trio was made for my third solo album, which I want to put together from my own songs and record with interesting guests. Since my life sometimes feels like juggling too many balls (and I’m only good with two), I can’t say when I’ll finish it. But give me your email and I’ll let you know when I do.