Scandi Dance
Leader & Musicians

Linda Brooks (DC) - Leader

Website: www.scandiadc.org

Linda is a founder and director of Scandia DC. She has been teaching Norwegian and Swedish dancing for over 30 years and has performed and taught in many venues including the Kennedy Center, Scandinavian embassies and at events of many of the Scandinavian heritage groups. She was a coach and primary dance teacher and performer for several Washington Revels Christmas performances over the years celebrating the Scandinavian countries winter solstice traditions. She has studied and researched dances from both Norway and Sweden, and in 2003 she earned the Big Silver Medal in Swedish Polska dancing.

Linda is also on the teaching staff of the Nordic Dancers of Washington, DC and teaches Norwegian and Swedish bygdedans (regional and village dances) to that performance group. Linda co-founded Scandia DC in 1985, and served as co-director of the group from 1985 through 2018.


Andrea Hoag (MD) - Musician

Websites:
www.andreahoag.com
www.hoagkelleypilzer.com

Andrea Hoag (Violin) is a regular featured fiddler at Scandia D.C. She studied fiddle with Swedish tradition bearers Jonny Soling and Kalle Almlöf at Malungs Folkhögskola in the Dalarna provence of Sweden during 1983-1984. She has since made two extended trips to Sweden to study and perform. From 1984 to 1991, she was the director of Seattle's Skandia Spelmanslag (fiddler group).

Andrea is a versatile, expressive fiddler who has performed widely around the U.S. and in Sweden. She received a Grammy nomination for her 2006 CD Hambo in the Snow with Loretta Kelley and Charlie Pilzer, and has been honored as a Traditional Music Master by the State of Maryland. She has twice received the Maryland Individual Artist Award and is a WAMMIE winner for "Best Traditional Folk Instrumentalist" from The Washington Area Music Association.

Andrea has several recordings available, and has recently served as producer on a recording by the band STEAM. She teaches widely around the U.S. and via internet. The Washington Post's Richard Harrington wrote of Andrea's music, "Call it a fiddle, call it a violin - in her hands it is simply a marvelous string instrument that fits into myriad traditions anf fuels many cross-cultural fusions."


Loretta Kelley (DC) - Musician

Website: www.fanitull.org

Loretta Kelley (Hardingfele, Violin) is a regular featured fiddler at Scandia D.C. She is well known within the Scandinavian dance community and is acknowledged as the foremost American born Hardanger fiddle player in the United States.

Loretta studied Hardanger fiddle (Hardingfele in Norwegian) during 1979-1980 at the Folk High School in Rauland (Western Telemark) and was during that time a member of the local fiddlers' group, the Spelemannslaget Falkeriset. She has since returned to Norway many times for extended visits to learn from some of Norway's best fiddlers. She has played in many competitions in Norway, including Norway's national competition, the most prestigious Landskappleik.

Loretta received a Grammy nomination for her 2006 CD Hambo in the Snow with Andrea Hoag and Charlie Pilzer, and has several recordings available with them. See: www.hoagkelleypilzer.com.


Bruce Sagan (MI) - Musician

Website: www.brucesagan.com

Bruce Sagan has played for dances, workshops, and concerts in the United States, Europe, and Australia. He has taught at a variety of folk music and dance camps and workshops, and has served as music director for Scandinavian Week in West Virginia (and its later incarnation, Nordic Fiddles and Feet) and Stockton Folk Dance Camp in California. He currently lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Initially, Bruce was drawn to folk music and dance through the distinctive melodies and rhythms of the Balkan region. He has been playing and teaching music from the Balkans since the late 1970s. He has studied gûdulka (a Bulgarian bowed stringed instrument with resonating strings) with some of its top players and lived in Bulgaria to absorb more about the instrument. Bruce also plays Scandinavian music on fiddle, Norwegian hardingfele, and Swedish nyckelharpa (keyed fiddle). He has visited Scandinavia numerous times to work with fiddlers and collect material. He was awarded the Zorn Diploma in Bronze on the basis of his playing before a jury of some of Sweden's best fiddlers. This honor has been accorded to very few non-Swedes.

Bruce's first album, Spelstundarna, won critical acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic. In a review of his second CD, With Friends, the premier Swedish folk music magazine Spelmannen wrote that he played "som en inföding" -- "like a native." This constitutes high praise in a country where it is often felt that you should only play tunes from your own village. His most recent recording, Leter From America with Brad Battey, was released in 2019.

In the warmer months you may also find Bruce dancing or playing with a morris team: he has been a member of Boston's Black Jokers, the DC-area Foggy Bottom Morris Men, and is currently with Ann Arbor Morris.

Lest he suffer from having too much spare time, Bruce also maintains a vibrant career as an internationally respected mathematician.


Sonia Pearson White (DC) - Musician

Website: www.scandiadc.org

Sonia Pearson White (nyckelharpa) has studied nyckelharpa with many of the top Swedish players on their trips to music and dance camps in the United States. She studied with Olov Johansson of Väsen, Ditte Andersson, Mia Marin, and Sonia Sahlström during a year-long course at the Eric Sahlström Institute in Sweden in 2014-2015, after she retired from her career as a scientist. Her blog describing this experience is at http://www.soniasvikt.org.

Sonia is also an accomplished dancer; she traveled to Sweden 5 times and earned her Big Silver medal in Swedish polska dancing in 2015. This dance experience helps her find the right tempo and "swing" when she plays her nyckelharpa for dancers. She plays Swedish music for dancing regularly at monthly Mid-Atlantic Norwegian Dance (MAND) house parties. Sonia is co-leader of the Washington's Spelmanslag, a group of musicians who play Swedish music, including many times at the Swedish Embassy and Ambassador's Residence.