Fior

After last year’s success, Balfolk Friday is back! Dance along with amazing balfolk bands on Meadow Stage. Start the day with this great band:

Fior (Old High German, “Four”) is a new quartet from Southern Germany dedicated to modern folk music. Fior creates music for the dance floor as well as concert halls, they make people dance and dream.

So far the four musicians of Fior intensely worked on and played folk music from other countries (especially Sweden, France and Ireland), but now they developed an urgent desire to find out more about the melodies and songs of their home country Germany and to breathe new life into them. They’ve come across a true treasure of music, which should no longer sleep quietly! Medieval ballads and folk songs meet arrangements of poems by writers such as Fontane and Eichendorff, groovy jigs alternate with gentle waltzes and traditional tunes from rediscovered German music manuscripts are interwoven with the band’s own compositions.

Their debut album "Manuskript" (released in May 2022) has received excellent press reviews. For example, it was nominated for the prestigeous "Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik" (German Record Critics' Award), chosen by the Belgian magazine "Le Canard Folk" as "Album of the Month June 2022" and the leading German folk magazine "Folker" gives the album an "unconditional recommendation".

The unique instrumentation guarantees an inimitable and lively concert experience. The mellow vocals, the Celtic colors of the DADGAD-guitar and tin whistle, the Nordic sound of the Swedish nyckelharpa and säckpipa, as well as the intense drone sound of the hurdy gurdy offer a rarely heard sound cosmos and take the audience on a lyrical journey full of groove.

Fior are Regina Kunkel (nyckelharpa), Rick Krüger (vocals, bagpipes, whistles, clarinet), Sebastian Elsner (hurdy gurdy) and Björn Kaidel (guitar, nyckelharpa). After Regina, Rick and Björn were already active for several years in the German folk scene with their instrumental folk duos Akleja and Airu, they got the idea to found a new band focused on songs and lyrics. With the hurdy gurdy player Sebastian Elsner they found the perfect match for this project.

All four musicians are among the leading players of their instruments in Germany, have extensive stage experience and are in addition to their work as musicians also in demand as instructors at courses and workshops in Germany and abroad.