The Flying Elephants
We’ve got exciting news! We can finally announce the very first band that will perform at the first-ever edition of Pixie Spirit Fest on April 17 & 18, 2027.
Those of you who follow our socials may already have seen it, but now it’s time for the official announcement from the band themselves:
Yes! We’re incredibly excited to announce that The Flying Elephants will be performing
But who exactly are The Flying Elephants? How did this band come together, and where does their name come from? After all… elephants can’t fly, can they? 🤔
We looked into it for you!
The Flying Elephants 🎻🐘 consists of Angela (bodhrán), Henk (guitar), and their son Daniël (violin).
Naturally, the very first question we asked them was: how did you come up with the name “The Flying Elephants”? What’s the story behind it?
To answer that, we have to go back to 2013, when Daniël was still in kindergarten. In the construction corner at school, he built a sort of seesaw using a wooden block and a plank. Sounds harmless enough… until he decided to place a small plastic elephant on one end, and then stomp down hard on the other side with his foot.
The result? An elephant that literally flew through the air, flipped around, and landed with all four legs stuck to the ceiling… where it decided to stay 😅
It’s an anecdote that has followed Daniël around ever since, but in the end it did result in a fantastic band name. And even better: they actually wrote a song about it
The unfortunate little elephant, stuck to the ceiling with all four feet 🤣
How did The Flying Elephants come to be?
During the 2021 edition of Elfia in Arcen, they attended several performances by The Trouble Notes. Daniël, who was 13 years old at the time and had already been fascinated by violins for quite a while, gathered all his courage that day and asked Bennet, the violinist of The Trouble Notes, if he could hold his violin and try playing it.
That one question led to Daniël’s very first violin lesson, given by none other than Bennet himself. He taught him his very first melody: Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.
Daniël was instantly hooked and started taking violin lessons. The first few years, however, weren’t always much fun because of the endless simple exercises and children’s songs that completely failed to inspire him. That changed when he met a violin teacher who immediately understood exactly what he needed and where his passion truly lay. Goodbye nursery rhymes, helloooo folk music! 🎻
From that moment on, Daniël progressed in leaps and bounds. So much so, that he and his father decided to respond to a call from Bendefestijn, who were looking for a band to perform at their event.
Father and son answered the call, and before they knew it, they were standing on stage together for the very first time: Henk on guitar and Daniël on violin.
That performance became the very first public appearance of The Flying Elephants.
In the years that followed, Daniël devoted himself to building a repertoire of jigs, reels, hornpipes, polkas, and other instrumental Irish and Scottish folk tunes. To mix things up, Henk also sings a number of songs, and every now and then Angela joins the duo on bodhrán.
Whenever the trio visits festivals, their instruments naturally come along as well. At those events, they often ended up joining lively jam sessions with the booked artists, sometimes even on stage. During the Schots Weekend in 2025, they were even invited to share the stage with The Trouble Notes. Together, they performed the Swallowtail Jig in front of an audience of around 500 people. How amazing is that?
What once started as a temporary father-and-son duo has gradually grown into a live band that is being booked more and more frequently. This year, they will perform at Bendefestijn for the third time, and they have also been booked for Runeheim on May 30 & 31, as well as Fantasy Forest Libertalia in England!
Of course, the Pixie team couldn’t resist booking them for our very first edition as well. But that’s not all: we also asked The Flying Elephants to compose the official Pixie Spirit theme song for our promotional video.
And we can already reveal this much: the theme song sounds ABSOLUTELY AMAZING! Visitors of Pixie Spirit Fest 0.5 were the very first to hear it, and they immediately loved it too.
Now, of course, we’re hoping that The Flying Elephants will perform the song live during Pixie Spirit Fest on April 17 & 18, 2027. Wouldn’t that be incredible?
