Jaerv + The OK Factor

Name: Jaerv + The OK Factor
Start: 2025-10-24T19:00:00-05:00
Location: The Historic Temple Theatre

Schedule

Fri, 24 Oct, 2025 at 07:00 pm

UTC-05:00

Location

The Historic Temple Theatre | Viroqua, WI

12 and under $15 • Adults $35
Jaerv is an award-winning Swedish quintet, which presents extroverted, vigorous and heartfelt traditional music with influences from both jazz and pop music. Together Joel Hagen (flute, whistles, soprano saxophone, vocals), Anders Bergsten (double bass, nyckelharpa, vocals), Harald Nilsson (guitars, vocals), Markus Gustavsson (fiddle, lead vocals) and Tobias Hedlund (percussion, vocals, pump organ) have created a homogeneous, vivid sound which has established Jaerv on the traditional music scene. Rooted in several different musical traditions, Jaerv has made a global name for itself, touring in the U.S., Japan, Spain, Scotland, Ireland, Finland, Norway and more. Equally recognized by their traditional music peers as from popular music press like Billboard.
“Jaerv takes the elements of traditional Scandinavian music and reflects them through a modern prism, with an all-acoustic sound that nonetheless takes a bevy of tricky turns in rhythm and harmony that makes the pleasant rural melodies ring with a contemporary complexity” (Pop Matters).
"They are singing, playing, storytelling and are so terribly good. The audience is knocked out by their performance!" (Susanne Rydén - President of the Royal Academy of Music)
"One of Sweden's most inventive folk bands." (Nordstjernan US-magazine)
•••
Olivia Diercks and Karla Colahan - cellist and violinist of the new-classical crossover duo, The OK Factor - have one word to describe their musical connection: lucky. The almost telepathic way they respond to one another is palpable to the audiences they capture during performances, as is their spontaneity and joy. Organic and genuine, their original compositions and arrangements feel both comfortingly familiar and uniquely fresh, and have been described as "genre-bending" (Julie Amacher, MPR) and "pure magic" (Wausau Pilot & Review).
Celebrating over 10 years of writing, performing, and touring, The OK Factor has honed in on ways they can impact the communities they visit outside the concert hall. Residency work has become a deep passion - sharing intimate performances, conducting outreach activities, and leading workshops for students through their education initiative, ATLAS. Olivia and Karla are also sought-after collaborators and composers-in-residence, having worked with many regional, national, and international artists, and various digital music libraries.
The OK Factor’s distinct compositional and performance style awarded them the honor of being finalists for the prestigious McKnight Fellowships for Musicians in 2018, and Artist Fellowship recipients for Scandinavian Folk Arts and Cultural Traditions through the American Scandinavian Foundation in 2020. The duo has produced five studio albums of their original pieces and arrangements: Water Street ('14), That's Enough of That ('16), Have Yourself an OK Christmas ('17), Season’s Greetings (‘20), and OKX (due to release in the spring of ‘23).