The BCT Music Series presents an intimate evening of bluegrass and instrumental acoustic music with Mike Marshall and Darol Anger: The Duo and Swedish acoustic trio Väsen at 8 p.m. Thursday, March 10, at Boise Contemporary Theater, 854 Fulton St., Boise.

Tickets are $30 general or $50 for VIP package including premium seating and pre-performance reception. Tickets are available through bctheater.org/musicseries.php and the Boise Contemporary Theater box office.

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America’s premier acoustic music duo has joined forces with Sweden’s most influential instrumental trio to create a new landscape of traditional sounds that forges the gap between the fiddle and dance tunes of Appalachia and the nyckelharpa and polskas of Sweden.

The evening includes individual performances by The Duo and Väsen, as well as the featured set with all five musicians on stage together. You will discover just how small the Atlantic Ocean really is when you hear The Duo and Väsen weave together centuries-old traditional forms from separate continents into such a natural fabric.

Väsen (vasen.se) and The Duo (mikemarshall.net, darolanger.com) had been fans of each other for many years before meeting at the Lotus World Music Festival in Bloomington, Indiana, in September, 2004. Mike and Darol had already learned a few Väsen tunes from their earlier CDs and were dreaming of one day playing with these guys. So when they were thrown together on stage (at their own request, of course), it was obvious to all from the first few notes that something very special was being born here — a connection based on their love for traditional music and this quest for the answer to where it might be heading.

With The Duo and Väsen, you have a similar mindset about the potential for creative musicians from separate worlds to work together with joy, understanding and open hearts — the creative and respectful birth of something with roots that reach way back in time to the fathers of their music, while at the same time pushing ahead toward something new.

ABOUT THE PLAYERS:

MIKE MARSHALL, MANDOLIN

Mike Marshall is one of the most accomplished and versatile acoustic musicians performing today, a master of mandolin, guitar and violin whose playing is as imaginative and adventurous as it is technically thrilling. Able to swing gracefully from jazz to classical to bluegrass to Latin styles, he puts his stamp on everything he plays with an unusually potent blend intellect, humor and emotion.

In 1979, at the age of 19, he was invited to join the original David Grisman Quintet in the San Francisco Bay Area. That association quickly lead to his recording and touring with some of the top names in acoustic music today, including Tony Rice, Mark O’Connor, Stephane Grappelli, Bela Fleck and Edgar Meyer. Today Mike can be heard on the Car Talk soundtrack recording every week on NPR along with Earl Scruggs, David Grisman and Tony Rice. He also performs regularly in duet settings with Darol Anger, Edgar Meyer, Chris Thile and Hamilton de Holanda, as well as with his groups Choro Famoso and Psychograss.

DAROL ANGER, VIOLINS

Violinist, fiddler, composer, producer and educator, Darol Anger is at home in a number of musical genres, some of which he helped to invent. With the jazz-oriented Turtle Island String Quartet, Anger developed and popularized new techniques for playing contemporary music styles on string instruments. The virtuosic “Chambergrass” groups — Darol Anger’s Republic Of Strings, Psychograss, and the long-lived Anger-Marshall Duo — feature his compositions and arrangements. His Grammy-nominated folk-jazz group Montreux was the original musical model for the New Adult Contemporary radio format. The David Grisman Quintet forged a new genre of acoustic string band music with Darol’s “fertile inventiveness, surprising touches and technical mastery” (Boston Herald) often in the forefront.

Working with some of the world’s great improvising string musicians, among them Stephane Grappelli, Mark O’Connor, David Grisman, Tony Rice, Bela Fleck, Vassar Clements, Michael Kang (String Cheese Incident) and Yonder Mountain String Band, has contributed to the development of Anger’s signature voice, both as a player and a composer. Anger has produced dozens of critically-lauded recordings since 1977.

OLOV JOHANSSON, NYCKELHARPA

In 1990, Olov Johansson became the first world champion of the nyckelharpa. He began to play the nyckelharpa in 1980 as a 14-year old, and was named a “riksspelman” (master musician) in 1984. Olov has studied with the legendary Curt Tallroth and Erik Sahlström. He is regarded as one of Sweden’s most prominent nyckelharpa players, and is an inspiration for numerous young performers on the instrument. He teaches regularly at the Eric Sahlström Institutet.

Apart from his association with Väsen, Olov has also played with groups such as Kronos Quartet and the Nyckelharpa Orchestra, as well as solo performances. He has also recorded and toured with the chart-topping Swedish rock group Nordman, with his solo project Storsvarten and on the album Early Music (with Kronos Quartet).

MIKAEL MARIN, VIOLA

Mikael Marin is a violist who isn’t satisfied with merely playing “second fiddle.” His influences are literally unlimited in their scope, and oscillate between Schöenberg and the Beatles. He became a national fiddler in 1983, and was chosen to play in a world orchestra under the direction of Leonard Bernstein in 1989.

When not performing with Väsen, he composes, produces and arranges music for artists such as Mikael Samuelsson, Nordman and Kronos Quartet. He composed (together with Mats Wester) the opening music to the World Police and Fire Games in Stockholm, 1999. Mikael can be heard on several recordings, including Nordman (with Nordman), Barfota (with Mikael Samuelsson), Ånon (with Ånon Egeland), and Flow My Tears (with The Forge Players).

ROGER TALLROTH, 12-STRING GUITAR

With his specially tuned guitar (A-D-A-D-A-D), Roger Tallroth has developed a distinctive sound of his own. In addition to the guitar, he plays the Swedish bouzoki and octave mandolin. Roger received his first guitar when he was 13. Since then, he has studied at Sjövik Folkhögskola and Örebro. He has about 50 followers throughout the world using his tuning, a number still growing. He has given numerous seminars around Europe and the US. Roger has performed together with Nordman, Annbjørg Lien, and the Gunnel Mauritzson Group, among other artists, and has also participated in several stage and theater productions.

Roger’s discography includes Nordman (with Nordman), Felefeber, Prisme, Baba Yaga, and Aliens Alive (with Annbjørg Lien), Siluette and Raisu Äut (with the Gunnel Mauritzson Group), The Horse and the Crane (Ale Möllerand) and Kat Kombat (Kombat). He also produced the self-titled début album of the group Draupner.

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