concert Archives - Page 11 of 14 - Sofia Talvik - Americana / Folk with Swedish Roots

November 25, 2011

Drivin’ & Dreaming tour!

In just a week my US tour begins. December is already packed with gigs all over the Sunshine State (Florida). I mean it’s the place to be when my home country is all dark and cold, right! So I packed my bags and flew over the ocean and here I am. I just bought an RV that I’m fixing up so I can have somewhere to lay my hat on the road. It’s an old Gulfstream Conquest, and it turned out to be a bit more work that I had hoped for. But now that we tore most of the interior out, we can start putting things in and hopefully we’ll be able to live in it a week from now (termites and water leaks hopefully gone).

The first gig is at the Broward Folk Club at Your big picture Café in Davie, December 2nd. Then we’ll head back to Orlando and work our way from there down the west coast and then up the east coast. You can find all information about dates and venues HERE! If you are interested in hosting a house concert or have a venue that you would like me to play at, please contact me here!

I hope to see you on the road!

xo Sofia

September 4, 2011September 4, 2011

Thoughts about booking a tour

I’ve just started booking my US tour, starting in Florida in December, and first of all I have to say how amazed I am by these quadrillion of music venues. It seems like every café, restaurant, library and music lover hosts concerts. I’m also amazed how many of them are folk venues, or at least host folk music as well as other genres.

In Sweden nobody even knows what folk music is, here it’s fiddles and Orsa spelmän (if you all want to know what happened to ABBA after the 80’s). (I guess I’m not being totally fair because people here have heard Fleet Foxes and mostly the folk genre is called singer/songwriter here though I don’t think it’s totally right.)

Once in an interview the reporter asked me how I would define my music, and I answered “americana/folk”. When I read the published interview my answer was American funk. That says something about Sweden and folk music. But in the US, folk music almost seems like a cult. And here I am ordering feather hair extensions tuning my Luna guitar. I will probably fit right in!

So anyways, coming from a country that may be small but is really big when it comes to music export (again with the ABBA) I must say that Sweden is a puny country when it comes to live music. I was wondering the other day how many people would actually be confident enough to host a house concert here in Sweden. To actually let musicians and other people into their homes.. I mean what would the neighbors say???

So it’s really uplifting to see how many venues there are to chose from in the US. Unfortunately I’m not alone with this knowledge and I’m competing with so many bands. I just have to pray that I stand out in the crowd and that all these people will find it in their hearts to invite me to their homes, their cafés, libraries, galleries and what not.

And if you live in the US and want to host a house concert with yours truly, get in touch here http://book.sofiatalvik.com!

June 26, 2011July 7, 2011

Living your dream

Ten years ago my mind was set on attending Fabrica Design school in Italy. The application papers were sitting on my desk in my apartment when I met the love of my life here in Sweden and the dream of going to design school in Italy was permanently put on the shelf. But somewhere deep inside a longing of seeing something else, being somewhere else and experience something else kept living in me.Over the years I lived it out in small portions through starting my label, releasing a bunch of records and traveling through Asia and the USA many times. Every time I did something like this I felt more alive, and every time I came home to my apartment in Stockholm I felt like I had left a little part of myself behind.

A year ago I started thinking that I could maybe get a job in New York. In my mind it would be a way of supporting myself and at the same time do shows and be closer to my US fans. It was an excuse to go over and pursue my music career, something which I soon discovered was a total paradox. Having a job in New York wouldn’t mean a lot of free time which I could use writing songs and doing shows. If anything it would be the other way around. Taking a job in the US would mean having less time to pursue my music career than I did now. Not to mention my husband was asking the question; and what would he do for a living? So one night when we were talking about this urge I had of leading a more adventurous life, preferably somewhere else than Sweden, I told him “wouldn’t it be great to go over and just tour, to just work with music and nothing else. And he looked at me and said “Why don’t we? That’s what I want too”.

It was like a veil fell from my eyes. Here’s what I had longed for all these years without ever quite realizing what it was. And after that the preparations began. It was all very slow and unorganized from the start. I started looking into ways to do concerts in a different way from the old pub show thing, checking out how it works with house concerts, having ideas of Library concerts and small intimate shows at art galleries. I got in touch with a company who helps artists apply for artist visas and filed an application. It’s now been 9 months and I still have a long way to go and a lot of stuff to work out before I can even say this has begun. Right now I’m not living in the now at all. I’m living in the future where I see myself living in the moment – every moment.

I’m still not quite sure how we will manage financially but I will just have to “make it work” like Tim Gunn would have said. Because what does money matter when you have the chance to be living your dream.

January 3, 2011October 18, 2011

Concert in your home!

Have you ever dreamed of having your favorite independent artist perform a private concert just for you and your guests?

Starting in October 2011 I will do an extensive tour in the US. I’m now looking for people who would like to host a concert in their home.

Simply put, a House Concert is a private party, employing live original music, held in a private home, garden, civic center, church or other space under your exclusive control. There would need to be enough parking nearby and your neighbors should be cool. It would be a huge bummer if someone called the cops because of all the extra cars and people coming to your house. You should probably not do this if you live in a small apartment with a bunch of uptight neighbors, room mates or a cranky landlord.

You should be able to host a minimum of 10-15 people. It’s up to you to invite people and spread the word about the concert. You can choose for yourself if you just want to invite friends or if you want to advertise the concert publicly. You have to guarantee the artist a minimum of 10 paying guests. A $10-20 donation per guest should be paid to the performer and it’s also customary, but not required, to offer the artist a home cooked meal and a room for the night. A stage isn’t required, and the PA system will be provided by the artist.

Your home address will not be published on the web and we will negotiate from concert to concert if you would like to publish any contact information to you about the concert or if you wish assistance with promotion.

Contact us if you would be interested in hosting a concert or would like more information.

Here’s a preliminary tour route so you’ll know when we’ll be in your state.
If your state is not on the list and you want to host a concert please throw us an email anyway and we’ll consider your offer.

2011
December: Florida

2012
January: South Carolina, Georgia,
February: Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee

December 7, 2010August 25, 2011

X-mas concert in Second Life

Even though I actually played World of Warcraft for a while, and have a lvl 60 gnome called Znorfia, I kind of feel like Penny in the Big Bang Theory when it comes to Second Life. But that makes it even funnier that I’m doing a live Christmas concert in Second Life.

I will be playing at “OneLove”, a wintry stage built especially for this event by Aallotar Takaaki. The Concert will take place this Thursday at 10pm Swedish time. The stage is at Iendi Laville (pronounce “jändi”) and Apollon Allen’s new sim Yadkin Valley, and is hosted by OneLove Events. OneLove Events is a new place in Second Life and is meant to be something for everyone.

One Love stage in Second Life

I’m always intrigued by trying out new ways to spread my music so it’s exciting to do a show in Second Life.

I’m playing the same songs as I played at my Stockholm Christmas concert last week, so this is a way for all of you who missed that concert to see me (kind of) live no matter where you live. All proceeds from the concert will go directly to ECPAT for their campaign “Stop Sex Trafficking of Children and Young People”.

You will find the event through this link:
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Yadkin%20Valley/185/192/1501

You can also read an interview with me about the concert here.

Merry Christmas and I’ll see you all in Second Life on Thursday!

My avatar in Second Life

Oh look! The party has already started!