I'm Mich (pronounced: Mick) Nielsen from Copenhagen, Denmark.
My â€musical†career started in the mid-seventies where I began hanging out in Vognhjulet (The Wagon Wheel), a long gone folk club in Copenhagen. Soon my interest brought me to Ireland and I still remember my first session in Cultúrlann na hÉireann in Monkstown. The following year brought me to Miltown Malbay and the Willie Clancy Summer School . What an eye opener!
I came back the following year with a tin whistle in my pocket and signed up for a class with Micho Russell. I took classes two years in a row, but I never really practiced at home. I didn’t “know†anybody here who played. They were “musicians†and you couldn’t just walk up and talk to them. Also I’m a believer in instant results and when I wasn’t able to play like Mary Bergin after practicing for a couple of weeks I gave up.
I have been known to squeeze a box and I even tried to blow the right end of a flute as well, but I love the music so much that I thought it would be the decent thing not to “play†myself.
I have missed one Willie Week since my first time there.
Back then I still went to sessions in Copenhagen, but only as a listener. Then I got involved in a little organization called Live Folk (I may even have been a founder member), who tried to promote trad. music sessions in Copenhagen. We didn’t have much success, but I got to know a few “proper musiciansâ€. Some of us got together late one night in Vognhjulet and decided to “upgradeâ€, what had until then been known as the Scottish Irish Weekend, to the Copenhagen Irish Festival . We rented a big concert hall and the yearly festival hasn’t looked back since.
I stayed on the committee for a couple of years and although I'm no longer on the committee, I still help out where and whenever I can.
My contribution to the music scene here in Copenhagen? – I make websites.
I have made quite a few for “Danish†Irish bands and you can see samples at www.ceol.dk .
I also review Irish music for the Danish Irish Society
We don’t have many sessions in Copenhagen, but every Sunday there’s a good one in Bloomsday Bar .
We also have the Copenhagen Folk Club (another of my sites) which put on great concerts several times a year.
I go to Ireland two – three times a year and I do my best to catch sessions while there. Then I stack up my cd collection of course. Best shop for trad. music in Dublin? Claddagh Records !
... and yes, I do have a website of my own: www.michn.dk