I was born and grew up in Stockholm. As my parents were folk dancers I grew up among folk music and dancing. I learned the most common dances before school age. I was folk dancing from 6 years of age. As a young teenager I met with some folk music traditional musicians - fiddle and keyharp, and learned tunes and style from them. This was mainly the traditions from Uppland.
As folk music and - dance was my main interest I studied and had a MA exam in ethnomusicology. (I don't know if the names of the degrees are the same in US) 
As I met Gert and later (1971) married him and moved to Värmland, I started to look for folk music and dances from Värmland and soon we started to search for traditional musicians and dancers trying to learn from them. 1976 - 1981 I was employed to do research, collecting music and dances. Together Gert and I spent much of our time touring with programs playing folk music, just the two of us or together with other musicians. Also we did programs with dancers. During that time I earned my living playing, writing articles, producing radio- and TV-programs on folk music etc. And we had three daughters, one of them Karin.
After that I got a job as an assisting director at Musikhögskolan Ingesund, a music department of Karlstad University, where I still work. The main reason for employing me was to introduce folk music as a main subject in the education. Which is now very successful. I also teach dancing and have lectures in ethnomusicology at the university,
Now there is not as much time spent on professional music tours. I do play, and prefer to play for dancing. And dance of course. I lead (teach) the local folkdance group (Jössehäringarnas folkdansare) and a local fiddlers group (Jössehäringarnas spelmän). And sometimes I go to other places in Sweden to teach the dances and music that I have collected and learned as well as methodology of teaching folk dance. Ann-Marie also sings and will share some songs with us during the week at camp. photos submitted by the artists
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