FUNERAL FOLK (Maria W Horn & Sara Parkman)

Funeral Folk is a musical collaboration between Swedish folk music violinist Sara Parkman and spectralist composer Maria W Horn. Together they explore the rituals of grief and the musical phenomenology of death through their respective crafts and influences. 

Maria and Sara’s musical relationship dates back to playing in the same teenage band in their hometown of Härnösand in Ångermanland, Sweden. In making Funeral Folk they rebound to this shared background exploring everything from sacred songs, spectral music and black metal to folk melodies from their home region. As a part of the process of creating Funeral Folk they learned lamentation techniques from Finnish Karelia, used for expressing personal and collective grief and sung at funerals to guide the deceased on their last journey.

The music holds a varied instrumentation consisting of synths, zithers, hurdy gurdy, guitars and mellotrons, as well as voices and rusty cowbells. For the live performances Mats Erlandsson plays guitar and zither. 

Maria W Horn is a contemporary composer and synthesist employing instrumentation ranging from analog synthesizers to choir, string instruments, pipe organ and chamber music formats. Her music is often based on minimalist structures, exploring the inherent spectral properties of sound and its ability to transcend time and space, reality and dream. 

Sara Parkman is a violinist, singer and composer focused on Swedish folk music. In her recent releases, she explores her Christian heritage—the sacred music that has been a part of her family for many generations.