Workshops with Riksspelman and World Champion Anders Mattsson!
Two-Workshop Package
Dates: February 1st & 8th, 2026
Time: 10-11:30 AM Pacific / 1-2:30 PM Eastern
Location: Zoom
Cost: $25 for both sessions – open to ANA members only
All instruments welcome!
Registration is now closed and the Zoom link has been sent by email!
If you registered, but don’t see that email, please contact us here.
About the Workshops
We are excited to present Anders Mattsson for our first 2026 workshop series! You may have heard his name circulating recently as the 2025 co-world champion on the nyckelharpa. Join us for two Sundays, Feb. 1 and 8, from 10-11:30 AM Pacific / 1-2:30 PM Eastern. He’ll teach us tunes from the repertoire of Jonas Skoglund, a lesser known nyckelharpa player from Uppland with some splendid tunes. The sessions are spaced out so as to allow plenty of time to practice between sessions. Anders has generously agreed to make recordings available to workshop participants for later study. These will be for private use only, and absolutely not to be shared on any form of public media.
About Anders
I grew up in Grodan, an old family farm in northern Uppland. As neighbor to Eric Sahlström, I heard a lot of his music and was amazed by the resonance in his harpa and his tunes. When I was 10, Leif Alpsjö moved to Göksby and understood immediately that I was interested in the instrument. He managed to borrow a ¾-harpa for me, and then and there began my nyckelharpa journey.
I had the great fortune to get to meet and hear/play with most of the great old players in Uppland, such as Eric Sahlström, Viksta-Lasse, Sven Larsson, Kurt & Ivar Tallroth, Ceylon & Henry Wallin, and Hasse Gille, among others. I “played up” for the Zorn medal in 1983 and received bronze. In 1990 I became a Riksspelman.
I played in different groups, among others the Nyckelharpsorkester and participated in the CD “Till Eric”. In the 1990s there was Upplandkvartett, and later the trio ÖRA (Örjan Englund, Robert Larsson, and me).
At the World Championships for Nyckelharpa at Skansen in 1992, I won the “audience favorite” prize. At the next World Championships in Linköping in 1994, I became World Champion and again got the “audience favorite”. I played a lot after that and taught at tune-courses all around in Sweden.
I started my own company in 2007, working a lot for many years, which reduced the amount of playing I could do pretty much to just playing at home for my own enjoyment. But a few years ago, I felt a strong longing to get back to the tunes. The desire came back and is stronger than ever!
In 2020, Torbjörn Näsbom and I had the first concert together in my storehouse, and in 2025 we had our sixth. During these years I have also played a lot with Olov Johansson, Annika Ekstav, and others.
Lately, I’ve been playing a lot with Annika, and because we live near each other, we often meet up and just play. We also play in a trio with my partner Malin Svensson, who is a piano teacher and former cantor. Then we have not only nyckelharpa but also piano, pedal organ, accordion and sometimes church organ.
Something I currently find very interesting is to look through old recordings and even notes, because Malin can help me with reading the notes. It’s enriching and cool, when I can learn new (old) tunes!