Biography
Kerstin's fascination for music started at an early age and hasn't waned since!
She grew up listening to classical music before going on to take recorder and piano lessons. Parallel to this she was always singing, and became a member of various choirs, later a bluegrass band and her first Celtic project, the Scottish band SÍOBHRA, where she developed further skills on guitar, mandoline and bouzouki.
After school she studied musicology and Scandinavian languages and cultures in Berlin (Germany) and in Bergen (Norway), with particular emphasis on Norwegian folk music.
Today she tours all over the world with a wide variety of different projects, ranging from studio work and theatre-music productions to the Celtic groups TOUCHWOOD with Belfast musician Cristina Crawley, TALKING WATER and NORLAND WIND (featuring Thomas Loefke and Clannad-members Pádraig and Noel Duggan).
She cultivates her Norwegian roots not only in her Celtic-Scandinavian World Music project VALIVANN and in solo performances, but also in the duo KELPIE featuring the Scottish guitarist Ian Melrose.
To get an idea of the breadth of her musicality, here's a list.
live projects:
SOLO
Scandinavian World-Music
www.myspace.com/kerstinblodig
Kerstin Blodig`s VALIVANN
Rhythmic Ballads from Both Sides of the North Sea
KELPIE
Celtic-Scandinavian Roots to New Acoustic Music
www.myspace.com/duokelpie
TALKING WATER
Groovy Celtic Ethnopop
www.myspace.com/talkingwater
TOUCHWOOD
Celtic Roots Mouth Music
NORLAND WIND
Harp Music and Song from the Celtic Northwest
see the
projects page for more details
studio work
Kerstin has had many compliments for her intonation and is often asked to make use of her infamous "internal harmoniser?, which allows her to spontaneously create one, two, three or even more vocal harmonies to a melody line ("you hum it, I'll harmonise it...?) in a very short time, as long as the sound engineer can keep up!
Besides singing, playing guitar, bouzouki, mandolin, bodhrán and banjo for audio CDs she has done recordings for film scores - recently e.g. for the Irish-American-German co-production "Love and Rage? and the new German release "Schnee in der Neujahrsnacht?.
theatre
Various productions including "Clockwork Orange" and Brendan Behan's "Richard's Cork Leg? (banjo, vocals, guitar)
