The performers, Cliff Gaddy (vocals and baritone ukulele) and Kerstin Gaddy (harmonica), are members of the Nordic folk music ensemble, Washington’s Spelmanslag.

This concert presents five poems by Dan Andersson set to music, performed in Swedish, with spoken commentary in English. It offers an introduction to Dan Andersson not only as a Swedish poet, but as an artist shaped by the Finnish–Swedish-Norwegian borderland region, with its unique blend of cultures and music.

Dan Andersson (1888–1920) is one of Sweden’s most beloved poets and songwriters, but his work is inseparable from the Finnmarken region where he was born and lived. Beginning in the late 1500s, Finnish-speaking settlers—known as the Forest Finns (skogsfinnar)—made their homes in the forests of central Sweden and eastern Norway. Their culture, language, and way of life shaped the region for centuries. Dan Andersson grew up within this world and even worked as a charcoal burner, a profession closely tied to the Forest Finn legacy.