Mats Granfors, a Finnish-Swedish violinist from Finnish Ostrobothnia, and Pär Moberg, a saxophone player from Skåne in Sweden, met through the Nordtrad network for higher education in folk and world music, as Mats is a senior lecturer in music at Novia University College in Vaasa/Jakobsstad, and Pär is a senior lecturer at the Malmö Academy of Music. Musical liking arose immediately, and since 2025 the two have been a duo with both Swedish and Finnish-Swedish folk music in their repertoire.
In their playing, the two build on their deep knowledge of traditional playing styles, but the unusual instrumentation with violin and saxophone, and the meeting between the Finnish-Swedish and southern Swedish repertoire gives the music an innovative tone. In historical times, FInland was a part of Sweden for centuries, and sailing across the Baltic Sea has been the easiest way for people and music to travel. So you can hear that these are sibling traditions that meet, even though they are now at home in two different countries.
Mats Granfors
Mats has a solid family background in Finnish-Swedish folk music, but his path into a musical career went via studies in jazz piano in Copenhagen. This led him to songwriting and arranging in pop, and he has, among other things, a Japanese number one hit on his CV. In recent years, however, he has returned to the violin and Finnish-Swedish folk music. Especially in the group I Fäälan. At Novia, he works a lot with internationalization and entrepreneurship within ICH North.
Pär Moberg
Pär grew up with rock music, but was totally absorbed by folk music and the saxophone in his twenties. His musical base is in folk music from Skåne, but he has also played everything from klezmer and Balkan music to Arabic music in a large number of constellations. He also writes and arranges a lot for everything from his own folk music ensembles to choirs and symphony orchestras.
Bookings in Sweden are made via Evolving Traditions and in Finland via mats.granfors@novia.fi. For the rest of the world, you can contact either.