By Henrik Norbeck

Swedish traditional music (the Swedish word is folkmusik) is definitely alive, and there are lots of people all over Sweden who play it. Someone who plays traditional music is called a spelman, plural spelman (the verb att spela means "to play (music)").
A typical small festival is the spelmansst?mma, plural spelmansstammor (which means something like "musicians meeting"). Most places in Sweden have one of these meetings once a year. Some of the meetings are small, some (e.g. the one in Bingsjo in the beginning of July) are very big with thousands of people arriving in for one or more days and nights of dancing, playing, listening and having a generally good time. During the summer these meetings are usually held outdoors. At these meetings you often find a lot of people playing together in small groups (informal sessions). This is called buskspel (playing in the bushes) in Swedish. At most meetings there is also a visstuga, which is a singing session, usually in a house so you can hear the singing properly.
There are folk music clubs all over Sweden which organize concert, dance and session nights.
Many Swedish tunes are called something like Polska efter Erik Olsson. This means that the tune comes from the playing of Erik Olsson (but not that he composed it). It's similar to the way Irish tunes are often called something like "Willie Coleman's Jig", which means that Willie Coleman played it, but not necessarily that he composed it.