- This event has passed.
Mads Tolling & Jacob Fischer: A Tribute to Svend Asmussen
Tuesday, September 17, 2019 @ 7:30 pm
Danish jazz violinist Svend Asmussen, known worldwide as “The Fiddling Viking,” was greatly loved throughout Scandinavia. From the age of 15 until Asmussen’s death last year, San Francisco-based Danish violinist Mads Tolling kept in frequent contact with the older musician, who counseled him on his early musical training. Asmussen later donated a large chunk of his music collection to Mads, including many handwritten charts.
In this performance honoring the musician, Mads Tolling and Danish guitarist Jacob Fischer (a 20-year member of Svend Asmussen’s quartet) will play a mix of tunes that span Asmussen’s career, ranging from his early 1940s and ’50s collaborations with guitarist Ulrik Neumann up to his more recent quartet works.
Songs on the program will include “June Night” and the Swe-Danes hit “Scandinavian Shuffle,” the Danish folk tune “I Skovens Dybe Stille Ro,” and songs from the Great American Songbook.
Mads Tolling and Jacob Fischer’s new album, Celebrating Svend Asmussen, will be available on this tour of the U.S. and Canada.
About the Musicians
About Mads Tolling
Mads Tolling is an internationally renowned violinist and composer originally from Copenhagen, Denmark, now living in San Francisco. As a former nine-year member of both bassist Stanley Clarke’s band and the celebrated Turtle Island Quartet, Mads won two Grammy Awards, and he was nominated for a third Grammy in 2015. Recently, he was the 2016 winner of the DownBeat Critics Poll Rising Star Violin Award. Mads has performed with Chick Corea, Ramsey Lewis, Kenny Barron, Paquito D’Rivera, Leo Kottke and Sergio & Odair Assad.
After graduating from Berklee College of Music in 2003, he was recommended by Jean-Luc Ponty to join Stanley Clarke’s band. He has since been featured on NPR’s Morning Edition, and his recordings have received rave reviews in the Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, Strings Magazine and DownBeat Magazine. Mads has performed for Prince Frederik & Princess Mary of Denmark at the celebration of The Danish Embassy’s 50-year Anniversary. Mads has twice been commissioned to write violin concertos, for Oakland Symphony and Pacific Chamber Orchestra. He has performed his symphonic works and soloed with orchestras around the U.S. and Japan.
Mads now leads his own groups, the Mads Tolling Quartet, and Mads Tolling & The Mads Men. His latest release, Playing the 60s, is a reimagination of classic songs from 1960s film, TV and radio, such as “A Taste of Honey” and “Mission Impossible.” The album, released in 2017, features vocalists Kenny Washington and Spencer Day, and spent two months on U.S. jazz radio’s Top 30. The groups have performed over a thousand concerts around the world, including at The Hollywood Bowl, Library of Congress and at the Bay Area’s Paramount and Herbst Theatres. As a featured Yamaha Artist, Mads leads clinics and masterclasses in the U.S. and internationally.
About Jacob Fischer
Danish guitarist Jacob Fischer is one of the premiere jazz guitarists in Europe, often compared to the great Django Reinhardt. A member of Svend Asmussen’s quartet for the last 20 years of Svend’s life, and Jacob is featured on several albums with the quartet. Mads and Jacob connected in 2014, when Mads put a new group together to tour Scandinavia. The two of them have since performed over one hundred concerts in Northern Europe and the U.S.
From Scandinavia House.