- Instrument Viola
Multifaceted performer-creator Lucas Blekeberg explores music traditions and innovates around them.
As a violist and occasional violinist, Lucas has performed across Denmark, Canada, and the United States. After working in chamber ensembles with principal players of major orchestras and assisting the Canadian Opera Company Orchestra and Danish National Symphony Orchestra, he was recently appointed Principal Violist of Lincoln's Symphony Orchestra; Associate Principal Violist of Sioux City Symphony Orchestra; and Section Violist with Des Moines Symphony. Lucas currently freelances with a variety of ensembles and teaches privately in the Upper Midwest.
As a fiddler, mandolinist, and singer, Blekeberg is a folk and roots musician, performing as a collaborator and solo artist. Also a multi-genre improviser and composer, he shares progressive music live and digitally. His session work has included a Polaris Prize and Juno Award-winning album. His rhythm piano-oriented singer-songwriter EP will be released in 2024.
Lucas hails from Northeast Iowa, where he studied with Erik Sessions and Tarn Travers and co-founded Bread & Butter String Band. After studying at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, Lucas earned degrees from McGill University in Montreal, The Glenn Gould School in Toronto, and The Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen, where his teachers included Felicia Moye, Steven Dann, Lars Anders Tomter, and Asbjørn Nørgaard.
After nearly a decade abroad, Lucas returned to the Midwest in 2023, where he works on creative projects which can be followed on his social media. Catch him in concert with orchestras, chamber ensembles, folk bands, and as a multi-genre solo artist.
Lucas joined the Des Moines Symphony in 2023.
