Garrison Keillor is the host and writer of A Prairie Home Companion and The Writer's Almanac, heard on public radio stations across the country. He is the author of more than a dozen books, including Lake Wobegon Days, The Book of Guys, Love Me and Homegrown Democrat. He was born in Anoka, Minnesota, in 1942 and graduated from the University of Minnesota. He lives in St. Paul with his wife and daughter. He has two grandsons. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts & Letters and the Episcopal Church.
The Royal Academy of Radio Actors
	Once a freckle-faced, snaggletoothed kid sitting on a Coke box eating Popsicles and listening to storytellers in small-town Georgia, sound effects man Fred Newman is now an actor, writer, musician, and sound designer for film and TV. In addition to his work on A Prairie Home Companion, he can be seen daily on the public television reading show Between the Lions. He's author of the book (and CD/CD-ROM) MouthSounds: How to whistle, pop, boing, and honk for all occasions ... and then some. "Sound-making, like life, requires a playful, fearless spirit," Fred says. "You have to be willing to look and sound like a moron and act in exactly the manner teachers told you not to." He admits that, growing up, he was unceremoniously removed from a several classrooms, "once by my bottom lip."
	Tim Russell has been a regular on A Prairie Home Companion since 1994. All those voices you hear on the program — Henry Kissinger, George Bush, Jimmy (Guy Noir's favorite bartender down at the Five-Spot), Mr. Rogers — yep, Tim Russell. Since beginning his radio career decades ago at WDBQ-AM in Dubuque, Iowa, he has been voted "Best Radio Host" by Mpls./St. Paul Magazine and "Outstanding Broadcast Personality" by the Minnesota Broadcasters Association. In addition to his Prairie Home duties and ongoing gigs as a voice-over artist for commercials, Tim is entertainment editor (weekday mornings from 5-9 a.m.) on Minneapolis' WCCO radio. Tim and his wife, Judy, are seasoned cruisegoers. Their favorite was a Black Sea cruise from Greece to Turkey through Istanbul. But, Tim warns, "Gotta watch your diet."
	For the past 15 years, Sue Scott has been a member of A Prairie Home Companion's Royal Academy of Radio Acting. She's played everything from ditzy teenagers to Guy Noir stunners to leathery crones who've smoked one pack of Camel straights too many. The Tucson, Arizona, native and Dudley Riggs' Brave New Workshop alum is well known for her extensive commercial and voice-over work on radio and television. She has also performed on theater stages throughout the Twin Cities and the Midwest. This is Sue Scott's fourth sea voyage. Her first was with family; the past three have been Prairie Home cruises. She has loved the experiences — from taking in the breathtaking scenery to simply enjoying the company of friends.
The Guy's All-Star Shoe Band
	Each week on A Prairie Home Companion, Richard Dworsky leads the Guy's All-Star Shoe Band. A keyboardist, composer and arranger, Rich has accompanied Garrison Keillor on U.S. and European concert tours and has provided original music for many Keillor recordings. He has worked with numerous other performers, including Al Jarreau, the Hopeful Gospel Quartet and Tony Award-winning singer/actress Kristin Chenoweth, who recorded Rich's song "Goin' to the Dance with You" on her 2001 CD, Let Yourself Go (Sony Classical). For seven years, he worked with the Children's Theatre Company in Minneapolis, and he served as music director for the Robert Altman film A Prairie Home Companion. His solo CDs include So Near and Dear to Me (Prairie Home Productions) and The Path to You (Inner Vista Records).
	Chet Atkins called Pat Donohue (guitar) "one of the greatest finger pickers in the world today." The legion of fans this Saint Paul-based artist has gathered over the years would certainly agree. From swing and jazz to bottleneck blues and folk, Pat plays it all with a flourish of artistry and melodic inspiration. And he writes too — unique compositions that have been recorded by Suzy Bogguss, Kenny Rogers and others. Although most weekends are spent lending his talents to A Prairie Home Companion broadcasts, Pat manages to schedule about 30 solo concerts a year nationwide. He also teaches at popular music camps such as Augusta Heritage Center and Rocky Mountain Fiddle Camp. Profile (Bluesky Records) is the most recent of Pat's albums.
	A New York native and Minnesota resident since 1977, Gary Raynor (bass) taught for 10 years in the University of Minnesota Jazz program, and is now an instructor for the McNally Smith College of Contemporary Music in Saint Paul. He toured with Sammy Davis Jr. for several years and has performed with the Count Basie band, the Minnesota Pops Orchestra and the Plymouth Music Series. In addition, Gary has played for productions by the Guthrie Theater, Chanhassen Theatre and the Ordway Music Theatre, and for dozens of Broadway touring shows. Gary is featured on two Janet Jackson albums, and has worked with many Minneapolis-based artists, including Moore by Four, Debbie Duncan, Connie Evingson, Prudence Johnson and Klezmerica.
	Staten Island's favorite son, Arnie Kinsella (percussion), has been associated with A Prairie Home Companion for more than 20 years. He first took up drums when he was 13. After a stint in the army — where he was a member of the New York Army Band — he earned a B.A. in music from Brooklyn College. Since then, he has played and recorded with The Manhattan Rhythm Kings, Leon Redbone, Vince Giordano and the Nighthawks and others, and he's often worked in Broadway pit orchestras for shows such as A Chorus Line and Me and My Girl. Arnie recently completed a recording project with clarinetist Bobby Gordon for Arbors Records.
	Andy Stein (violin, saxophone) definitely has far-flung musical leanings. He has recorded with Itzhak Perlman, Placido Domingo, Marilyn Horne, Frederica Von Stade, toured China with a string quartet, and performed with orchestras from New York to the Pacific Northwest. He has also been a featured soloist in a number of Broadway Shows, including the Lincoln Center production of Anything Goes and the 1990s Broadway revivals of Guys and Dolls and Fiddler on the Roof. He has produced records of rock 'n' roll and jazz, and conducted on radio and television. He also collaborated with Garrison Keillor to create the opera Mr. and Mrs. Olson. As John S. Wilson, jazz critic for The New York Times, said, "For a classically trained violinist, Andy Stein has been so thoroughly subverted by a succession of other musical styles that he has become, to twist Ellington's phrase, 'beyond category.'"
Other Musical Guests
	Frigg Frigg, a fiddle-based group with Finnish and Norwegian heritage, combines elements of their respective folk traditions with touches of Appalachian and country & western. Some credit the gene pool for the band's impressive abilities: A number of Frigg's musicians represent one of Finland's best-known fiddle families — founders of the celebrated group JPP; others are members of a comparable Norwegian Hardanger fiddle clan. In any case, after dazzling Scandinavian audiences with their innovative arrangements, this exciting young ensemble is now winning followers on both sides of the Atlantic. Their latest recording, Frigg: Live, was released this year. The band is: Alina Järvelä (fiddle), Esko Järvelä (fiddle), Antti Järvelä (double bass, fiddle), Einar Olav Larsen (fiddle, Hardanger fiddle), Tero Hyväluoma (fiddle), Tuomas Logrén (guitar, dobro), Topi Korhonen (guitar) and — representing the British Isles — Laura-Beth Salter (mandolin).
	The Kreutzer Quartet with Aaron Shorr, piano The Kreutzer Quartet has established an enviable reputation as one of the Europe's most dynamic and innovative string quartets. The Independent newspaper summed up their playing as "passion, grace and steel." Over many years, they have forged creative partnerships with composers such as Sir Michael Tippett, David Matthews, Michael Finnissy, Judith Weir and Haflidi Hallgrimsson. As recording artists, they have won critical acclaim for their discs on the Naxos, Metier and Chandos labels. Peter Sheppard Skærved Kreutzer Quartet violinist Peter Sheppard Skærved has recorded all of Beethoven's Sonatas, Rodolphe Kreutzer's concerti, the Telemann Fantasies, as well as more than 50 other discs of new and rare repertoire. He was honored with a 2007 Grammy nomination for his recording of Hans Werner Henze concerti. He is the only violinist to have performed and recorded on Niccolò Paganini's del Gesù in the original setup, and as a result, was invited to play the violin at the 2007 Paganiniana Festival in Genoa. He tours regularly worldwide, is the musician-in-residence for the British Museum in London, the leader of the Munich-based Ensemble Triolog, and the artistic director of the virtuoso chamber orchestra Longbow. Following a very successful recital at the Library of Congress in 2006, he was invited to present a series of recitals of early 19th-century French repertoire there this year. Mihailo Trandafilovski Born in Skopje, Macedonia, Kreutzer Quartet violinist Mihailo Trandafilovski earned a music degree from Michigan State University and continued his education at the Royal College of Music in London, where he was awarded the United Music Publishers Prize for composition. His compositional interests lie with both instrumental and computer music. In the instrumental music field he has written for solo instruments, chamber groups, larger ensembles and orchestra. Recent commissioners include Peter Sheppard Skærved, Lontano and the Macedonian Composers Association. His works have been performed in the UK, Macedonia, America and Japan. As a soloist violinist, Mihailo has performed across Europe, America and the UK. A particular interest is the application of new music to pedagogy, for which work he was recently awarded his doctorate. Morgan Goff Morgan Goff studied at the Canberra School of Music, obtaining his Bachelor of Music degree. In 1992, he founded the Makovic quartet, which won first prize in the City of Sydney Eisteddfod for two consecutive years, and first prize in Australia's 2MBS-FM Young Musicians of the year award. In 1997, he moved to London and jointly set up the Solaris Quartet, which specialized in the music of composers interned in the Terezín concentration camp in Czechoslovakia, during the World War II. Morgan is now the violist of the Kreutzer Quartet, the Locrian Ensemble and the Gavin Bryars Ensemble. He has worked with major composers in England, Europe and Australia, recently making the world premiere recording of the Albanian composer Thomas Simaku's solo music. Neil Heyde Neil Heyde, cellist of the Kreutzer Quartet, is also a senior lecturer at London's Royal Academy of Music, where his work focuses on the relationships between performance, composition and analysis. As a soloist and chamber musician, he has appeared throughout Europe, and he has broadcast for the BBC, Radio France, Netherlands Radio and other European and North American networks, in addition to recording for the Metier and Naxos labels. Winner of the 1984 National Concerto Competition in his native Australia, he moved to London in 1986. He has edited Faber's series of 19th-century music for stringed ?instruments and piano, and has written an analytical study of Debussy's sonatas. He is now working on the volume of Debussy's sonatas for the Oeuvres Complètes de Claude Debussy.
	Aaron Shorr Pianist Aaron Shorr makes his home in the United Kingdom, but his reputation is truly international. His festival appearances include the Munich Biennale, the Montepulciano and Pescara festivals in Italy, the Breda Festival in Holland, the Mitte Europa Festival in Germany, the Menuhin Festival in Gstaad, the Venice Biennale, and the Ludlow, Brighton, Chelmsford, Huddersfield, Malvern and Little Missendon Festivals in Great Britain. With his long-term violin/piano duo partner, Peter Sheppard Skærved, he has toured Bosnia and Turkey, and the two have recently founded the Orchestra Modern of Ankara, which will foster the work of emerging Turkish composers. Shorr studied at the Manhattan School of Music in New York and the Royal Academy of Music in London, where in 1992 he was invited to join the piano faculty.
	Kustbandet (in English, "The Coast Band") is a 12-piece jazz ensemble from Stockholm, Sweden, whose renditions of hot tunes from the 1920s and '30s have enthralled fans for more than 40 years. They formed in the early 1960s, inspired by the music of Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Fletcher Henderson and other greats, and began playing at school dances and in small jazz clubs. With their performance at the 1973 New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, they earned an international reputation. Ever since, they have toured regularly — from Lapland to Sydney, Tokyo to the Crescent City. They've made guest appearances on dozens of albums, in addition making numerous recordings of their own. Their most recent CDs are On Revival Day (Stomp Off Records) and The Man From Harlem (Dialtone Records). It's said that in one of his last letters, Louis Armstrong — Satchmo himself — wrote that he wanted to sit in with Kustbandet. Enough said.
	Versatile soprano Maria Jette can sing opera one minute, then make a sharp turn to pop songs, chamber music, oratorio or show tunes the next. She is a frequent guest on A Prairie Home Companion and has appeared with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, New York Chamber Symphony, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra and Minnesota Orchestra, and with the symphonies of Houston, Austin, San Antonio, Kansas City, Charlotte, Santa Rosa and Buffalo. She has collaborated with VocalEssence, the Handel Choir of Baltimore, the Choral Arts Society of Philadelphia and the Los Angeles Master Chorale, and has been a regular guest at the Oregon Bach, Victoria Bach and San Luis Obispo Mozart festivals and the Oregon Festival of American Music. Maria starred as the "Mrs." in the May 2002 premiere of Garrison Keillor's opera, Mr. and Mrs. Olson.
	That silky alto and striking style — you'd expect to find Prudence Johnson singing at a high-tone nightspot. And you might. But be it a concert hall, a little jazz club or aboard ship during Prairie Home's Norway cruise, Pru is the perfect complement. Her 10 album releases include Moon Country, featuring the music of Hoagy Carmichael, Little Dreamer, a collection of lullabies, and 'S Gershwin. As one music critic put it, "[There's] not a genre she hasn't interpreted with her ducky, sensual alto voice and terminally good taste." On the silver screen, she appeared in Robert Redford's A River Runs Through It, and in Robert Altman's A Prairie Home Companion. This is her second sea voyage — she also went along on APHC's first cruise, up the coast of Maine to the Maritime Provinces. This adventure takes her to the land of her ancestors.
	Dan "Daddy Squeeze" Newton has been wowing audiences with offbeat accordion music since he won the Nebraska State Accordion Contest at the Czech Festival in Wilber. In the 20 years since he moved to Minnesota, he has become an acclaimed fixture on the music scene, both in the Twin Cities and beyond. A singer, composer and producer, he heads up a bunch of different groups, including the incomparable Café Accordion Orchestra, which specializes in vintage swing, Latin, polka, and French musette-the seductive, gypsy-influenced dance music that filled Parisian bistros and dance halls from the 1920s through the '40s. Café Accordion's latest recording, Cinema, is an album of songs from the movies. Dan's first cruise was last year's Prairie Home Alaska voyage. And while he never thought of himself as the cruise type, he came away saying, "What's not to love?!"
	For 12 years of his four-decade career, Butch Thompson was the house pianist on A Prairie Home Companion, dating back to the show's second broadcast in July of 1974. As a soloist, he has earned a worldwide reputation as a master of ragtime, stride and classic jazz piano. Described by Jazz Journal International as "the premier player in traditional jazz today," Thompson also performs with his well-known trio, his eight-piece New Orleans Jazz Originals, and with symphony orchestras, including the Hartford Symphony, the St. Louis Symphony, the Minnesota Orchestra, and the Cairo (Egypt) Symphony. Thompson's latest recordings are Butch Thompson's Big Three: 'Tain't Nobody's Business (Jazzology Records), featuring Butch on piano, Duke Heitger on trumpet, and Jimmy Mazzy on banjo and vocals; and At First Light (Turnagain Music).
	Pianist Sonja Thompson, a graduate of the Juilliard School, has appeared in a wide variety of performance settings with both singers — including Maria Jette — and instrumentalists. In addition to performing, Thompson is Assistant Professor of Music at Augsburg College, Adjunct Professor at the University of Minnesota, as well as Assistant Music Director at Plymouth Congregational Church in Minneapolis. With her Nordic heritage, the music of Scandinavia has been of great interest to Sonja since her childhood days, and the Prairie Home Norway cruise gives her another opportunity to celebrate the life and work of Edvard Grieg. As a member of the Grieg Society, she has performed concerts, workshops and master classes to promote the music of Grieg and other Nordic composers.
	Singing the music they love — be it bluegrass, folk, old-time, or acoustic country — Robin and Linda Williams have carved out a three-decade career that has taken them from Carnegie Hall to the Hollywood Bowl, the Grand Ole Opry to Austin City Limits, Music City Tonight to Mountain Stage. They've written dozens of terrific songs, ones that have been covered by the likes of Emmylou Harris, Tim & Mollie O'Brien, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Kathy Mattea, Mary Black, and The Seldom Scene. Robin and Linda's first album came out on a small Minnesota-based record label in 1975, the same year they debuted on A Prairie Home Companion. Recent recordings include Deeper Waters and The First Christmas Gift, both on Red House Records. This is their third Prairie Home cruise. For R&L (as their pals are apt to call them), who spend much of their time on the road, not having to pack and unpack on a daily basis is a significant perk.
Literary Guests
	Phebe Dale Hanson is one of Minnesota's most beloved writers. For many years, she taught high school English in the Minneapolis Public Schools, before discovering her talent for writing poems. A founding member of the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis, she has conducted writing classes there and elsewhere. Her first book of poems, Sacred Hearts (Milkweed Editions), came out in 1985, and in 2003, she celebrated her birthday with the publication of her second collection of poetry, a lovely volume titled Why Still Dance: 75 Years, 75 Poems. A travel/friendship memoir, Not So Fast, co-authored with Joan Murphy Pride, was published by Nodin Press in 2005. Hanson's father was Norwegian, and her mother was born in Sweden. In the 1950s, Phebe was a student in Bergen, and she returned to Norway in the 1980s to visit Oslo and other cities.
	At age 10, in the back seat of her grandmother's car, on the back of an A&W Root Beer stand receipt, Holly Harden began writing. She's been writing ever since. She grew up in several small Wisconsin towns, and attended St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota, where she majored in English and education. She also earned a master's degree in writing from Hamline University. She says she writes about "ordinary things like road trips and Mason jars, and about people I meet in grocery stores and waiting rooms." Holly's work has appeared in publications such as Utne and Fourth Genre. She teaches writing classes, works as a freelance writer for A Prairie Home Companion, leads Bible study at her church and cares for her three children.
	Marcia Pankake recently retired from the University of Minnesota Libraries, where she built literature collections. During her career at the university, she oversaw the purchase of some 200,000 books, as well as periodicals, databases, microfilms, manuscripts and other materials. She was the co-editor of A Prairie Home Companion Folk Song Book (Viking) and editor of A Prairie Home Commonplace Book (HighBridge). How fitting that she's the one to convene the cruise book club. She grew up on a farm in Maple Grove, Minnesota, and moved to Minneapolis for college. She still lives just a mile from campus. Old-time music fans may remember Marcia and her husband, Jon, as members of the popular Minnesota string band Uncle Willie & the Brandy Snifters.
	Christina Von Nolcken loves cruises and she knows an awful lot about the Vikings. So who better to relate interesting things about Norse days of yore, as the ship sails through waters that the Vikings knew well. Christina grew up in central Africa, in what is now Zimbabwe. She earned her B.A. and D. Phil. from Oxford University, specializing in medieval English literature. After briefly teaching at St. Anne's College, Oxford, she moved to Illinois in 1979 and began teaching at the University of Chicago. Currently Associate Professor in the English Department and Chair of the Program in Medieval Studies, she has a particular interest in Anglo-Scandinavian relations in the early medieval period (8th through 11th centuries).
Other Special Guests
	Nancy Bazilchuk is a naturalist — and a resourceful one at that. Years ago, while working for the Appalachian Mountain Club in New Hampshire's White Mountains, she wooed her future husband — and fellow naturalist — Rick Strimbeck by mimicking the breeding behavior of cedar waxwings. Her interest in nature began in childhood, and she went on to study geography at McGill University in Montreal. Her work for a Master's degree from the Field Naturalist Program at the University of Vermont took her to Glacier Bay, Alaska, the Venezuelan Andes, Haiti, and Half Moon Cove, on the shores of Lake Champlain. For many years she was the environmental and science writer at The Burlington Free Press, Vermont's largest newspaper. Nancy, Rick and their children moved to Norway in 2002.
	Dykstra Eusden — Dyk for short — lives in South Paris, Maine, and spends most of his time doing fieldwork as a geologist. He earned his Ph.D. in geology from Dartmouth College and is now a professor at Bates College, where he teaches Geology of the Maine Coast by Sea Kayak and Katahdin to Acadia: Exploring Maine Geology, among other courses. He has a keen interest in maps and map making. Currently, he is finishing a map of the Presidential Range in New Hampshire — a story of plate collisions in the Paleozoic Era to form the ancient Appalachian Mountains, once contiguous with the Norwegian Caledonides. Since 2000, Dyk, his wife, Lydia, and their two teenage sons have spent a total of about two years in Christchurch, New Zealand, where Dyk works on geology-related projects.
	Naturalist Rich MacDonald is an outdoor educator, with an emphasis on birds. He has a passion for adventure. Whether he's exploring the rocky coasts of the northwest Atlantic by sea kayak or telemark skiing the mountains of the northeastern U.S., Rich spends as much time in the great outdoors as possible. And wherever he is, you can be sure he can list a dozen species of birds he has heard in the previous 15 minutes. He discovered his interest in birds at age 10. Now his ornithological pursuits have taken him from New York's Adirondack Mountains to the Dominican Republic. He has studied the effects of acid rain on high elevation forests and has worked on the science staff of The Nature Conservancy.
	Born and raised in Northfield, MN, John Saucke worked long hours on the family farm. After marrying Debra Beck, John decided he wanted more than corn and soybeans on his resume and moved to the Twin Cities where he now performs regularly as a piper in the MN Police Pipes and Drums Band. As no one in the family had ever before shown an interest in bagpipes, John's parents no doubt worried a bit over why their son might want to wear a skirt and play such an alien instrument. John's favorite explanation is that he plays the pipes as a penitence for his Danish ancestors. Being in a pipe band exposes one to single malt Scotch, for which John is an enthusiast. In 2000 he began annual visits to Scotland usually to partake in the Islay Malt and Music Festival and has since toured 36 distilleries. Scotch tastings have become a favorite venue for John to share his enthusiasm. "It is a thrill to meet someone who doesn't like Scotch and introduce them to a single malt they rather enjoy. I don't expect everyone to like all single malts, but I like to believe there's a single malt somewhere out there for everyone. Helping one look for one's single malt is great fun."
	Naturalist Natalie Springuel combines her passions for the marine environment and coastal heritage with a love of teaching and adventure to help people discover the northwest Atlantic. With her husband, Rich MacDonald, she once spent five months kayaking the shores of the Gulf of Maine, paddling 1,500 miles and tallying 199 species of birds. (Natalie claims Rich didn't talk the whole last week as he looked in vain for number 200.) Natalie works for the Maine Sea Grant College Program, creating programs on the ecology and culture of the Gulf of Maine. She is a Master Maine Guide for sea kayaking and recreation, and has led thousands of visitors on adventures from Cape Cod to Cape Breton and every place in between. A longtime resident of Bar Harbor, Maine, Natalie holds an M.S. in environmental communications and a B.A. in human ecology. Please note:Natalie will not be able to travel with us to Norway due to other commitments, but will continue to function as an integral member of the naturalist planning team leading up to our departure.
	Naturalist Rick Strimbeck earned a degree in botany at the University of New Hampshire, then moved to Vermont by way of New Zealand, where he saw his first fjords while working as a backcountry hutkeeper in Fiordland National Park. He went on to earn a Master's and a Ph.D. at the University of Vermont. His studies took him to Costa Rica and Glacier Bay, Alaska, to study tropical forests and fjords, respectively, and his Ph.D. research helped confirm the connections between acid rain, winter stress, and dying red spruce trees in mountain forests. Strimbeck now teaches plant physiology at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim. With his wife, Nancy Bazilchuk, he leads family and friends on hiking, skiing and paddling trips in the Norwegian mountains and fjords.
	Lutheran pastor Scott Westphal was born and raised in Minneapolis. He attended St. Olaf College, where he studied political science. Later he graduated from Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota, and became an ordained Lutheran pastor. Currently in his 13th year of being a pastor in a small Minnesota town, Scott says he goes about all the day-to-day duties one would expect: marrying, burying, baptizing, preaching, visiting, teaching and "trying to be a pillar of the community." He adds that every Sunday, like clockwork, he can look out at the congregation and see his wife, Holly Harden, and their three children — Hayley, Graham and Olivia — in the front pew, right side.