American Café Orchestra - Nigtmare Polka

Ruthie Dornfeld, USA, Tapani Varis, Finland and Morten Alfred Høiruip Denmark celebrates 20 years of playing together by releasing "Nightmare Polka", an extraordinary album of all original music, and by touring in Denmark and Germany amongst others.

ACO had its beginnings many years ago, playing traditional music from the Nordic countries, Europe and America. In the 1980s and '90s the band toured intensively in Scandinavia and the USA, often with local guest musicians. With their eclectic, border-crossing repertoire, a creative, fresh approach to traditional music, and hard swinging rhythm, ACO greatly influenced young folk musicians who heard them at festivals in Kaustinen (SF), Rättvik (S), and Roskilde (DK), at concert venues in the USA, and on their three albums (American Café Orchestra, Somewhere in Sweden, and Egyptian Domino Waltz).

For the next ten years ACO hovered quietly in the background as its band members were actively involved in many other constellations, including Haugaard & Høirup, the Maria Kalaniemi band, and Freshet, crisscrossing the globe with performances in Western and Eastern Europe, Japan, Australia, the USA, Peru, Brazil, and Russia. But in 2011 the band reunited with fresh inspiration and a new mission: to play and record their own original music. The year 2012 will mark the 20th anniversary of the current line-up, with Danish guitarist Morten Alfred Høirup, American fiddler Ruthie Dornfeld, and Finnish bass and wind instrument player Tapani Varis. A new album, "Nightmare Polka", of all original tunes for violin, guitar, bass, vielle, jews harp, will be ready for 2012.