The Band
 Whence came this band called Tjärnblom, you may ask? Well, the day after attending an amazing concert by the Swedish band Väsen, Joe Alfano bumped into his work colleague Cheryl Paschke. Joe didn’t know Cheryl well, but he knew that she played fiddle with local Finnish America band Finn Hall, so he stopped at her desk and eagerly went on and on about the incredible Scandinavian music he’d heard the night before, describing, in rapt awe, the details of this strange instrument called a “nyckelharpa.” Cheryl listened patiently. When Joe said, “I wish I could learn how to play the nyckelharpa and that style of music”, Cheryl smiled, then replied, “I have an extra nyckelharpa at home. I’ll bring it to work tomorrow.”
Cheryl and Joe soon took the plunge and began playing Scandinavian music together both as a duo, and with the newly formed American Swedish Institute’s (ASI) affiliated Twin Cities Nyckelharpalag. A few years later, fellow lag member Mary Crimi began to sit in with them. With Mary on nyckelharpa, Joe added octave mandolin and guitar and together the trio expanded their repertoire of traditional Scandinavian tunes. In 2009, after 10 years of informally playing music, Tjärnblom was officially formed. Val Eng was invited to add her swirling range of harmonium sounds to the mix, and then, in 2017 the current band became complete—as Mary bowed out, and multi-instrumentalist,
composer, and Twin Cities Nyckelharpalag member Erin Walsh enthusiastically agreed to join in.
Tjärnblom, Swedish for "woodland lake flower" honors Cheryl Paschke’s Swedish grandfather’s family name. The band has released three CDs and has performed across the State of Minnesota at festivals, churches, libraries and community and private celebrations. In 2015 they appeared at a steaming hot July 4th outdoor performance of The Prairie Home Companion. When host Garrison Keillor told them prior to the show that four to five million people would be listening live to the program that day, a look of concern flashed across the band members’ faces. He then added, “Just be sure your instruments are in tune”. Since then, Tjärnblom and their well-tuned instruments have been playing tight arrangements of Swedish, Finnish and original music to audiences both large and small.

Cheryl
Paschke
Nyckelharpa
Cheryl grew up playing classical music on violin, later also viola. She started playing Swedish and Finnish folk music as an adult, after attending University of MN fiddling courses.  Her first encounter with nyckelharpa was at a spelmansstämma / fiddler’s gathering in Sundsvall, Sweden, where she felt pulled to the sound, as if by a magnet!  One of the players saw her intense interest and offered his instrument to try.  After asking about the tuning, Cheryl was able to play a simple Swedish song that she knew her mother, who was nearby, would like to hear. And yes, Mom was thrilled, Cheryl was smitten, and interest in a new pursuit began. 
 
Over the decades, nyckelharpa has become Cheryl’s main instrument. She plays a traditional Swedish 3-row nyckelharpa and 4-row nyckelharpa in Tjärnblom, Swedish Trio, Twin Cities Nyckelharpalag, several classical ensembles, and occasionally in orchestras.

Joe
Alfano
Mandolin
​Octave Mandolin
Guitar
Joe is another baby boomer whose life took a sharp turn when he saw the Beatles play on the Ed Sullivan Show. He spent the next six months shoveling snow and mowing lawns in order to save enough money to buy a guitar. Learning to play it has been a lifelong obsession. Another sharp turn in his life happened when Joe met Cheryl in 1998 and she opened the door to Scandinavian music.  Joe plays guitar, three sizes of mandolin, and sometimes even the musical saw in a variety of musical genres with
friends around the Twin Cities.

Val
Eng
Harmonium
Val began her church music career at age twelve and has been music director for various area churches, most recently for a Hispanic congregation.  She loves traditional art forms, is a shape-note singer, and discovered that Nordic music makes her "Norwegian blood boil" by dancing to it.  She is a piano teacher and provided music for
area arts camps for many years.

Erin
Walsh
Cello
Erin Walsh is a multi-instrumentalist and composer from Buffalo, MN.  Though her name is Irish, she is primarily Swedish in ancestry, and enjoys honoring her Swedish-born grandparents (Dalsland and Värmland) through music, playing cello, bass, fiddle, viola, piano, timpani, and näverlur.  Her original compositions range from school orchestra pieces to traditionally-styled Swedish and Irish tunes.  Erin plays traditional Nordic music around the Twin Cities and greater Minnesota, teaches strings privately in Buffalo, and plays contra music at Tapestry Folkdance Center.  She performs with
Tjärnblom, ASI Spelmanslag, Twin Cities Nyckelharpalag, and several contra bands.

Previous Tjärnblom
​Band Mates

Mary Crimi
Nyckelharpa

Mary is one of the founding members of Tjärnblom and is featured on their first two albums.    

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