On Saturday, the number of people in Denmark with Danish heritage could increase by as much as 200 percent.

The historic demographic shift will happen when two classical musicians from Denmark, the Scandinavian country that gave the world Hans Christian Andersen, set foot in Denmark, a tiny Oxford County town with lots of back roads to get lost on.

The musicians will be in town for a concert called “Denmark Squared,” which organizers say is the first-ever event uniting the two Denmarks. The concert at the Denmark Arts Center will feature trombonist Andreas Clemmensen and trumpet player Marianne Anker-Pedersen, with a pianist, playing works by Danish and American composers.

The concert is sponsored by the Danish government and the Consulate General of Denmark in New York.

As official as it sounds, the event was inspired by some Dutch artists who spent last summer at the Denmark town dump.

“We had two Dutch artists do a residency last year, at the dump, paid for (partly) by the Dutch government,” said Jamie Hook, a native of the town who is director of the Denmark Arts Center. “As far as I can tell, this is the first time Denmark has done anything to recognize its namesake nation.”

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That might be because the town of Denmark is not, heritage-wise, very Danish. The U.S. Census Bureau estimated that, from 2008 to 2012, perhaps three people in the town of 1,013 were of Danish ancestry. But that survey’s margin of error was plus or minus four.

In other words, the chances of finding an actual Dane in Denmark are slim to none.

“I don’t have any (Danish heritage) and I don’t know of anyone around here who does,” said Peter Smith, a Denmark native who makes fishing flies at his business, S.S. Flies, on Hio Ridge Road.

Smith said he does have a connection to the larger Denmark: He has sold some of his fishing flies there.

Most Mainers are pretty blasé about towns named for foreign countries and cities because there are so many in the state, Smith said. The famous photographed sign post in Albany township, erected in the 1930s as a tourist attraction, lists nine of them. Denmark is on that sign, along with Norway, Paris, Naples, Sweden, Poland, Mexico, China and Peru.

Most were named in the 1800s to honor countries that had gained independence recently, or had been attacked by one of our enemies.

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Mexico and Peru, for instance, were named around the time those countries gained independence. Moscow, near Bingham, was named around the time Napoleon attacked Russia.

The genesis of Denmark’s name is unclear. Books on Maine town names, the town’s website, and a couple of Maine town histories written in the 1800s don’t yield any specifics.

Some sources speculate that the town was named in a show of solidarity with Denmark because Copenhagen was attacked by the British in 1801. And it’s easy to imagine a large anti-British sentiment around here in the early 1800s.

Whatever the reasons for the name, Hook found the Danish government and the two musicians very willing to participate in this bridging of the two Denmarks.

Hook learned that Clemmensen and Anker-Pedersen would be spending six weeks this summer at the Pierre Monteux School of Music in Hancock, near Ellsworth. He also learned that the two, in their 20s, were eager to spread Danish culture to places outside Denmark. Or to places called Denmark.

Hook then contacted Danish government officials and found they were willing to provide money to help transport the two musicians to Denmark, the one near Fryeburg. Hook said that amount was nearly $1,000. The pair will play with pianist Edward Leonard, music director for the Pittsburgh Philharmonic.

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Clemmensen wrote in an email Thursday that he is looking forward to seeing the other Denmark.

“It is great that we, through music, are able to make a connection between this town in Maine, USA, and the country where its name came from,” Clemmensen wrote.

Who knows where this new Denmark-to-Denmark connection may lead?

Maybe next year Smith can lead a fly-fishing expedition to Copenhagen.


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