Renee Vaughan is a Minnesota-based musician, folk artist, and educator specializing in Swedish folk traditions. Through performance, storytelling, dance, and visual art, she brings Nordic culture into our community spaces. Her primary instrument is the nyckelharpa, Sweden’s national folk instrument. For nearly two decades, Renee has performed and taught throughout the Upper Midwest, appearing at venues and festivals including the American Swedish Institute, Norsk Høstfest, and the Nordic Soundscapes Festival with the Minnesota Orchestra. She is a teaching artist with Minnesota Public Radio Class Notes and with COMPAS, bringing Swedish folk traditions to classrooms, libraries, and community events. In 2024, she served as Musician-in-Residence at UW-Madison’s Nordic Folklife Department, where she researched the musical lives of 19th-century Swedish immigrants and launched Nordic Newcomers a free online educational resource. In 2022 and 2026, Renee was awarded a fellowship from the American-Scandinavian Foundation to study in Sweden with nyckelharpa player Cajsa Ekstav, deepening her study of regional Swedish folk music and dance. Renee first discovered Swedish folk music while studying traditional Swedish folk painting. After hearing the nyckelharpa for the first time — particularly the playing of Eric Sahlström — she became captivated by the sound, rhythm, and expressive depth of Swedish folk music and began learning in the traditional ear-based style. Before working full-time in the arts, Renee spent over a decade teaching students from elementary through college levels and twelve years working in Life Enrichment with long-term care and hospice. Those experiences continue to shape her approach as an artist and educator. |
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Renee Sunflower Vaughan was born in a VW van headed for Woodstock. Members of the commune doted on the budding musician and encouraged her interpretation of Tracy Partridge’s game-changing tambourine work. Young Renee had a difficult transition to life on the outside. At the impressionable age of 16, she hitchhiked along the famed Route 66, when the first car to stop for her was a lime-green 1972 Ford Pinto--and inside, Sammy Davis Jr. and Carol Channing. The trio toured the country playing their vaudeville revival act to second-rate hotels and casinos. At some point during their journey, Carol began the daunting task of taming and refining the free-spirited young lady. She instructed Renee in the art of social graces, teaching her how to dress gorgeously and walk steadily. Carol also shared her unique lipstick application techniques with the yet-to-blossom-beauty. Sammy's role in Renee's education was more simple, yet immeasurably more difficult--he instructed the young beauty in the tender arts of love. At last, when they could teach her nothing more, Renee, Carol, and a broken-hearted Sammy parted ways the best of friends. Renee traveled to the Land of 10,000 Lakes to see if it was indeed as unforgettable as her future musical trophy husband, Prince (RIP) had described. Once in Minnesota, she learned how to make a Swedish nyckelharpa from an old tree stump, goat entrails and a discarded typewriter. This new instrument allowed Renee to further pursue her creative vision. She forged ahead into the wild of her new home state, armed only with a nyckelharpa, and an abundance of confidence. Success came quickly and she found herself overwhelmed by the enthusiastic, and slightly aggressive nyckelharpa aficionados. Renee had no choice but to retreat into the woods, broken in body but happy in spirit. Renee can be found in her home, (which she made entirely out of pine needles, including the indoor plumbing,) biding her time quietly playing polskas, a subdued and thoughtful woman. |
