Five More Names for the 2026 Programme

Deep electropop
Since her solodebut in 2019, Selina Gin has made her mark as one of Denmark's most expressive vocalists, songwriters and producers. She has built both a successful solo career, toured with Peter Sommer, and written music for theatre and musicals. Backed by her band, The Iconics, she is presenting new material from her latest album I Memorize Your Face, ‘Cause it Changes all the Time (2025), which combines electropop, reflective sensitivity and playful energy. At Tønder Festival, you can have it all: Selina Gin on top form with her band The Iconics, her vocal ringing as clear as a Dolly Parton, rhythm and melody allied in an affective concert experience.

American roots and americana poets
John R. Miller is known for his poetisk word alchemy, drawing on old-time music, cosmic country and blues. His songs dwell on existential questions, angst and hope, and his music is borne by his genuine experience of life, from the Shenandoah Valley to the highways of USA. Tønder Festival is the only place in Denmark you can hear him in 2026, and you will be treated to a concert packed with intensity and personality.

Leon Majcen mixes classic americana with his tales of life on the road as a travelling musician. His latest album Making A Livin’ (Not a Killin’) (2025) reveals musical maturity grounded in the realities a life spanning a childhood in a Bosniac refugee family and many years touring the USA. On stage with his full acoustic band, Majcen's songs create a powerful yet subtly emotional sound.

World-class English and Scots/Irish folk music

Tønder Festival has booked two bands from Great Britain, bringing traditional folk music roots to today's audiences.

Kathryn Tickell & The Darkening play Northumbrian pipes, violin, accordion and singing in a complete ensemble sound. Their album Cloud Horizons (2023) has garnered them critical praise for its original and captivating music. The band integrates centuries-old music with modern intensity, melding countryside, history and music into a hypnotic listening whole.

The Ciarán Ryan Band plays old tunes and new songs on their album Kick Up the Dust (2026), a meeting of traditional Irish music and personal, introspective songwriting. Virtuoso handling of violin, uilleann pipes, bouzouki, piano and percussion interacts with deep respect for the tradition and an innovative, energetic delivery to provide a fascinating stage performance.  

THE MUSICIANS:

Selina Gin & The Iconics (DK)
Selina Gin is one of Denmark's most expressive singers, songwriters and producers. Her solo career began in 2019 with the live band The Iconics, opening for The National at the Royal Arena in Copenhagen, and from 2021 that career really took off. She was nominated for the Steppeulven award as Vocalist of the Year, played for full houses at Loppen in Copenhagen, was included on radio playlists and given 5-star reviews at the SPOT Festival.
Her debut album Patiently Waving (2022), produced with Søren Buhl Lassen, had Danish music journalists at GAFFA magazine, and dailies Jyllands-Posten and Politiken, reaching for the superlatives, and her singles, such as Young & Alive and ’Cause We Had It All, were often heard on Radio Denmark’s P6 Beat. This debut proved the depth of Selina Gin's format as singer, songwriter and producer.

The scope of her musical expression has gained energy with Selina Gin's move to the country, and motherhood. Perspectives broaden, and quitting the city has distanced her tendencies and expectations both physically and mentally. On the most recent album I Memorize Your Face, ‘Cause it Changes all the Time (2025), Selina Gin profits from her new stance in life to write electropop songs with the same reflection and sensitivity as on her debut album, but with new sources of inspiration, adding a more playful, disarming switch between fun and seriousness.

I Memorize Your Face, ‘Cause it Changes all the Time is crowned with laurels from reviewers across the media, and songs like Oh My Heart and Hurts Like a Mother have regular spots on Danish radio.
Besides her work as a solo artist, Selina Gin has toured and recorded with Peter Sommer and written music for the musical Nordkraft and Stine Pilgaard's theatre show Hvorfor laver vi ikke et band? (Why Don't We start a Band?).
At Tønder Festival she will be playing with her band, The Iconics.

John R. Miller (USA)

John R Miller is a well-hyphenated artist: a singer-songwriter-picker. Every song on his debut solo album Depreciated (2021) is full of complicated puns and indelible pictures. One of Miller's biggest fans through many years, the roots music hero Tyler Childers, has described him as "a well-travelled wordsmith, who maps out the world he has seen, three chords at a time."

John R. Miller has his roots in the Shenandoah Valley in West Virginia and grew up in a mess of religious tradition and small town life. Drawn early on to music, from radio hits to punk and on to old-time music and traditional fiddle music in West Virginia, until he found inspiration in John Prine, Steve Earle, Townes Van Zandt, Guy Clark, Bobby Charles’ swamp pop and J.J. Cale's Tulsa Sound.

As a teenager, he played in church halls and local clubs, but the road soon led him away from his native town. Life as a constantly touring musician took its toll, costing John R. Miller relationships and long periods of depression, and substance abuse. But the music was also what saved him and finally won through.

His two latest albums, Heat Comes Down (2023) and Heat Comes Down (Deluxe) (2025) touch on topics like angst, sleeplessness and existential crises, but also hope and healing. His blend of cosmic country, late night blues, classic americana and folk rock has been thrown up by his life's experiences, good and bad. At Tønder Festival you will see and hear an artist who can temper life's bitter blows with poetic insight, backed by a superb band who help bring energy and authenticity to the music.

Tønder Festival is John R. Miller's only Danish appearance in 2026.

www.jrmillermusic.com

Kathryn Tickell & The Darkening (ENG)

Kathryn Tickell is a multi-instrumentalist from the north of England who masters the Northumbrian pipes, the small northeast English bagpipes, known for their particular construction and their unique tone.
Starting to play the pipes at age nine, Kathryn released her first album aged 16, has had a long and illustrious career, reaching from traditional music to jazz and world music to orchestral compositions, while never forgetting her Northumbrian heritage.
Kathryn Tickell has worked with artists such as Jacob Collier, Sting and Penguin Café Orchestra, was the first folk musician at the BBC Proms and has been honoured with an OBE and the Queen’s Medal for Music.

Now she leads the band The Darkening, named after the old Northumbrian word for dusk. Together they are examining the relationships between music, the countryside and people over almost 2000 years and creating a musical world where ancient traditions find contemporary expression.

As well as Kathryn Tickell (small pipes, violin, song), The Darkening numbers Amy Thatcher (accordion, synth, clogs, song), Heather Cartwright (guitar, song), Joe Truswell (drums, percussion) and Stef Conner (lyre, song). Together they play rhythmic tunes, grand harmonies, and virtuoso instrumental work, in a kind of Ancient Northumbrian Futurism.

Their album Cloud Horizons (2023) has been critically praised for its energy and originality, and on stage the ensemble is famous for hypnotising audiences with a meld of modern folk music and centuries-old traditions.

Tønder Festival is Kathryn Tickell & The Darkening's only Danish appearance in 2026. www.kathryntickell.com

Leon Majcen (USA)

This modern American roots artist following in the footsteps of Townes Van Zandt, John Prine, Bob Dylan and Guy Clark started young. Still a teenager when his song Love and Misery was a radio hit, he saw his music introduced to listeners throughout USA. Subsequently he spent a decade on the road, packing an acoustic guitar and a fishing rod.

His fourth album in five years, Making A Livin’ (Not a Killin’) (2025) tells of the life of a travelling musician. That life took him a long way, far from his chosen home in Nashville. Both the album's solo songs and the recordings with a full band tell hard-hitting tales of the wandering player who is all too familiar with the victories and heartbreaks met along the way. You could say Leon Majcen's peregrinations began in infancy, when his Bosniac parents sought refuge in Florida, determined to set up a better life for their children. And Making A Livin’ (Not a Killin’) is his most honest album so far.
That album is also an artisitic milestone. For years, Leon Majcen felt most at ease just him and his acoustic guitar. But Making A Livin’ (Not a Killin’), with multi-instrumentalist Pat Lyon as producer, has a bigger, more layered sound. Pat Lyon is known for his work with americana stars like Colter Wall, but for Leon Majcen, he is more than that. During Leon Majcen's first years in Nashville, when he was struggling to finance his songwriting with  ordinary jobs, Pat Lyon became his mentor. He it was who encouraged Leon Majcen to take on the troubadour life and devote himself to the clubs, the highway and songwriting. Now that is how Leon Majcen makes his living - and it's going quite well, thank you.

At Tønder Festival Leon Majcen will perform with his band, and this is his only appearance in Denmark in 2026.

www.leonmajcen.com

Ciarán Ryan Band (SCO/IRL)

The Scottish/Irish multi-instrumentalist Ciarán Ryan, who is familiar from his work with bands such as Dallahan, Shooglenifty and countless other artists over the past 15 years, marks a new turning point in his career with the launch of his third solo album Kick Up the Dust (2026). This album, which is 100 percent his own work, presents Ciarán Ryan's most personal and introspective music so far. At the same time it marks a return to his roots in traditional Irish music and a heartfelt rediscovery of the tunes and the musical tradition that originally shaped his playing.

With Ciarán Ryan Band on stage, you are faced with a strong team: Tom Callister (violin), Ryan Murphy (flute/uilleann pipes), Luc McNally (bouzouki), Amy Laurenson (piano), Craig Baxter (bodhrán) and Greg Barry (drums). Together they breathe life into this musical rendez-vous between the tradition and the forceful tonal nuances of modernity. Ciarán Ryan started his own band after the release of his debut album Banjaxed (2019), and with the Ciarán Ryan Band they deliver a show borne by instrumental virtuosity and an energetic take on both traditional and contemporary music.
In 2026, they perform their only concert on Danish soil at Tønder Festival, and you have a treat in store: a salute to a long musical heritage and an embrace of modern experiments with tonal landscapes.

www.youtube.com/@ciaranryan8746

Tønder Festival 2026 – so far:

Emmylou Harris (USA), Aaron Lee Tasjan (USA), Skerryvore (SCO), Sam Kelly & The Lost Boys (UK), Joce Reyome (CAN), Erik Koskinen (USA), Ron Sexsmith (CAN), The Brothers Comatose (USA), James McMurtry (USA), Susan O´Neill (IRL), Ulige Numre (DK), Susto Stringband (USA), Sunny War (USA), Poul Krebs (DK), Emily Scott Robinson (USA), The Felice Brothers (USA), Rum Ragged (CAN), Daniel Lanois (CAN), Fantastic Negrito (USA), Jesper Lindell & The Brunnsvik Sounds (SE), Bye Bye Brenda (DK), Jake Blount (USA), AySay (DK), Heidi Talbot (IRL/SCO), Tako Lako (DK), Leon Majcen (USA), Selina Gin & The Iconics (DK), Ciarán Ryan Band (SCO/IRL), John R. Miller (USA), Kathryn Tickell & The Darkening (SCO/IRL).

Tønder Festival 26th, 27th, 28th and 29th August 2026

www.tf.dk

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Tickets: www.tf.dk