Jens Lekman & Youth Orchestra

This spring Jens Lekman is finally returning to the USA to play with youth orchestras across the country! Originally planned in 2020 and cancelled by you know what, this is a tour that he’s been working on and looked forward to for almost four years.

The idea originally came to me in 2015 when I was invited to Cincinnati to perform a show with a group of young string players from the organization MyCincinnati. The show ended up being one of the most memorable moments of Jens’ whole career. In his own words:

”The energy that is present when a young person is still exploring and mastering an instrument is something I’ve always been drawn to. As someone who’s been playing music more or less professionally for over 15 years I often have to go back to this youthful source to remember and learn. To let the students become my teachers.”

This time Jens is heading out with a new crew featuring the amazing violinist Leslie DeShazor from Detroit, his trusty old drummer Johan Hjalmarsson and his newfound acquaintance Jesse Bielenberg on bass. They’ll be making their way up the West Coast, doing a string of shows with youth orchestras there, then they’ll do a number of shows without orchestras, from Salt Lake City to Minneapolis. Those shows will have a slightly different set but will be great too. And then they’ll do some more orchestra shows from Chicago to DC. Well, just look at the tour routing and you’ll see. It’ll be great. This tour will focus a lot on songs from Jens’ earlier catalog since he’s re-releasing some of those albums this year but there will also be a lot of new songs that he’s been working on.

Oh, and in case you have no idea who Jens Lekman is, well, he’s a singer and songwriter from Gothenburg, Sweden, who’s been releasing albums with Indiana based record label Secretly Canadian since 2003. Look him up on the internet and see if you like his songs. If not, it’s ok.