‘I come from the land of ice and snow’

Inuit who grew up in Greenland to perform in Port Townsend

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The awe inspiring beauty of Greenland and the isolation of its long winters have had a profound impact on Simon Lynge and the music he now writes.

“There are still people that live very much based on nature, because nature is so powerful there,” Lynge said. “Everything depends on the weather. You can’t just go wherever you want to go because the weather might suck. There aren’t roads between cities in Greenland, so you go by boat. Therefore you are even more dependent on weather.”

Lynge — no stranger to the difficulty of walking through icy snow fields, a task which he said is physically and mentally exhausting — has named his most recent album, “Deep Snow.”

“In this particular instance, it is an allegory,” he said. “Sometimes in life you feel you are in a period where you are walking through deep snow and it is really exhausting. Anything above a foot is hard work and often there is eight feet in Greenland.”

The album, released in November, was recorded last year in Wales and London, Lynge said.

“That particular album is a winter album in that it is a bit more on the darker side of the spectrum of human emotion. It is just where I was at in my life when I recorded that album.”

The album originally was slated to drop in September, but was delayed by three months after Lynge, who lives in Port Townsend with his wife and two kids, nearly cut off the fingers of his right hand during a kitchen mishap in June.

“I was cutting a hot dog in my kitchen at home with a very sharp, short carving knife and I pushed too hard and it just slipped through the sausage and it cut through to the bone,” he said. “I severed five tendons and two nerves and an artery. My fingers were hanging off my hand like limp sausages.”

Not only was the injury potentially life threatening, but also jeopardized Lynge’s career as a musician.

“This is how I support my family,” he said.

Lynge was taken to a Seattle hospital for emergency surgery woth a specialist.

“The surgeon in Seattle was like, ‘I don’t know if you are ever going to play again,” he said. “It was a nightmare.”

After a five hour surgery, Lynge was hellbent on being able to pick up his guitar — he uses the fingers on his right hand to pluck his strings.

“For three months, I did 12 hours a day of rehab to be able to play again,” he said.

It worked, and although Lynge cannot bend the tips of his fingers fully anymore, he said he can “pretty much play exactly as I did before.”

Going on tour

Not giving up, Lynge finished and released his album, and has toured extensively during the autumn and winter to showcase the new songs.

“I was touring Denmark, Greenland and the United Kingdom,” he said. “I did a little bit down the West Coast in December.”

Lynge’s latest performance will be at 7 p.m. March 22 at Northwind Arts Center, 701 Water St. in Port Townsend.

Tickets are available online at brownpapertickets or at the door the night of the performance.

For more information, call 360-379-1086.

Lynge, who will sing songs from his new album and older albums, will be joined on stage by his wife Janna.

The performance is the latest in the ongoing Songwriter’s Showcase series.

“Most of the performers I’ve brought to the Northwind series have been nationally known touring players from around the country, who get through Port Townsend once in a great whiler,” said Matt Miner, series organizer. “Simon is here and he fits that category, so he’s a natural addition to the lineup.”

Simon’s fans in Port Townsend view Lynge as their hometown rock star, MIner continued.

“They root for his success like they would for a local kid who makes good in professional sports. And, this is a rare chance to hear him in a quiet listening environment, rather than a noisy dance hall with a full band and boisterous crowd.”

Miner said he considers Lynge a consummate professional on and off stage.

“He understands songs and how to get the most out of them for the benefit of his audience. He knows his strengths, and his rough edges, and knows how to make them both work for him.”

Lynge’s last album, The Map of Your Life, was nominated in The 2018 Independent Music Awards in New York, according to a news release.

He has had several song placements on US network television and film, appeared on BBC Breakfast TV, performed at the Glastonbury Festival and toured with Emmylou Harris.

Bridging cultures

Lynge split his childhood between Denmark and Greenland, where his Inuit father is an acclaimed accordion player, and his grandfather was a composer and conductor and namesake of a church choir in Qaqortoq, which still exists to this day.

“I think Greenland people are very open-hearted and still kind of in that old mentality of everyone helps each other out,” he said. “The capitalist idea of everyone to themselves hasn’t quite gotten a foothold there. Moreso today, but less back then. It is still not fully the way people behave.”

If a fisherman nets a big load, they share it with their neighbors, Lynge said.

“People to me are more sort of immediate and welcoming. When you are a guest in someone’s home, they will always give you their very best of whatever they have, even if it is the last thing and maybe won’t have anything for themselves after that.”

That sense of community has followed Lynge wherever he has lived, whether in Denmark or Port Townsend.

“I think that has affected my music, just that different way of seeing one’s self in the world,” he said. “I sing about peace and love and all that stuff, and I express my own difficulty being between these two cultures.”

As half-Danish, Lynge was confronted with racism when he went to live in Denmark at the age of 9, he said.

“There weren’t a lot of brown people in Denmark where I lived when I was a kid. On top of that, Greenlandic people experience quite a bit of prejudice in Denmark because their have been problems with alcoholism in Greenland similar to what happened to Native Americans. Even though it is not true anymore, there is still stigma against people from Greenland.”

Because of that reputation, Lynge said he had to excel in his studies.

“I always felt I had to be better,” he said. “I went to school in Denmark so you kind of have to achieve a little bit more than everybody else to be accepted to the same degree. That has been a thing in my life and has shaped how I am. That is present in my music as well.”

Folky influence

From a young age, Lynge said he was exposed to his mother’s favorite artists: Bob Dylan Cat Stevens and Bruce Springsteen.

“She played a lot of music in my house when I was a kid, the music that she loved,” Lynge said.

His father was a singer-songwriter, so Lynge is following in his footsteps but with a unique sound.

“I sing sort of in the alternative folk rock kind of style,” Lynge said. “The guitar is easy to travel with, so that is a convenient instrument. I play piano as well. I don’t really sing in Greenlandic, mostly in English.”

Lynge said he learned English from his American wife.

“I grew up bilingual — Danish and Greenlandic were my first two languages, and I think it is easier to acquire a third language.”

His ear for music also helped him become fluent in English quickly, he said.

“Music is a universal language, so when you are used to listening for melodies, language is easier to pick up.”