Dreamers' Circus: from left to right, Nikolaj Busk (piano), Ale Carr (cittern) and Rune Tonsgaard Sørensen (fiddle). Photo credit: Søren Lynggaard Andersen

Following their acclaimed performance of Vivaldi's Four Seasons with the Orchestra in 2024, we're absolutely thrilled to welcome back Pekka Kuusisto and Ale Carr - the latter with his Dreamers' Circus bandmates Nikolaj Busk and Rune Tonsgaard Sørensen - for their take on another classic, Beethoven's Symphony No.7.

It was also the perfect excuse to sit down with Dreamers' Circus to chat about their approach, as (mostly) folk musicians, to classical repertoire.

Your first performance, back in 2009, was your own take on the 3rd movement cadenza of Mozart’s Turkish Violin Concerto. Has classical music remained a constant presence in band life ever since?

For all three of us, classical music has always been part of our musical upbringing and education. And although our first meeting was by chance - at a jam session playing Nordic traditional music - our first performance on stage was indeed a folk take on Mozart.

We’ve never really worried too much about genre. We just play the music that feels honest to us. And because of our backgrounds in classical music - and our genuine love for the repertoire - it’s almost unavoidable that it continues to be a major source of inspiration in the concerts and projects we create.

This won’t be your first visit to Scotland – you’ve played at Celtic Connections, and Ale joined the Orchestra for Vivaldi’s Four Seasons with Pekka Kuusisto back in 2024. What do you enjoy about performing to Scottish audiences?

There’s a particular kind of listening culture in Scotland that feels very close to the folk world: attentive, curious, warm - and unafraid of emotional directness. Scotland also has such a strong musical identity. People come with a love of tradition, but they’re also completely open when you take things somewhere unexpected - which suits us really well.

On a personal level, there’s also a deeper sense of cultural connection for us. Coming from the Nordic world, Scotland feels like a cultural cousin - in history, temperament, and the way tradition and identity still matter in everyday life. You feel it in the traditional music too, of course, but it goes beyond that.

And we’ll admit: coming from a very flat part of the world, we also love the stunning scenery. And the whisky.

How do you go about selecting folk tunes that ‘go’ with Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony?

For us it’s never about forcing a “folk tune” onto Beethoven, or using folk as a kind of decoration. We always try to look beyond genres. It doesn’t have to be a huge statement to bring classical music and folk music into the same programme - both worlds are enormous, and both contain every kind of expression.

So the starting point is always the music itself: rhythm, energy, character, and movement. Beethoven’s Seventh is famously physical music - almost dance music at times - and that makes it a very natural place to begin. We’re listening for things like momentum, swing, grit, and that collective drive you also feel in great traditional dance music.

And it’s not only about similarity. Sometimes the most satisfying pairing is actually contrast - a tune that reframes what you’ve just heard, changes the colour in the room, or simply lets you breathe for a moment between movements.

What other works have you treated this way? Are there any on your wishlist?

This way of working - placing traditions and classical repertoire in conversation - has become a recurring part of our artistic life. Over the years we’ve explored music by composers such as Nielsen, Mozart, Bach, Vivaldi, Schubert, Haydn, Tchaikovsky and Pachelbel, in many different settings - sometimes as a trio, sometimes with string quartets, and sometimes in larger orchestral contexts.

We tend to be drawn to composers whose music contains something human and direct beneath the craft - dance, song, pulse, and storytelling. In that sense, it’s almost surprising that it’s taken us this long to properly dive into Beethoven. We’ve been looking forward to it for years.

And as for a wishlist: there’s no shortage. The dream is always to find repertoire that already feels alive with movement - where tradition and symphonic thinking can meet naturally.

Where should our audiences go to hear more of you, while waiting for a return visit?

The best place to start is with our recorded catalogue, particularly the projects where our writing, arranging, and instrumental interplay are most central. That gives a good sense of how we think and work as a band.

We also share a lot of live material online, and our YouTube channel is probably the closest way to experience how the music really lives on stage.

And of course, we hope this won’t be a long wait. Scotland is very much a place we look forward to returning to.