Last week I was in Dublin in Ireland. The citizens are very friendly and helpful! People sang Irish folk music on the buses and even in the stores sometimes! I was there with my mum and we went to a lot of sights. We visitited a castle, a Viking museum, some churches, a jail (as visitors :-), pubs, Guiness (where the beer comes from), stores, a library, a university and others. We went to a pub were they had live music, a jam session. The musicians where trditional folk music people and they played violin, guitar, flute and sang. I brought my flute but I didn´t hvae it that day, otherwise I should have joined them. I stood on the street with my flute and played James Galaway one day. That was appreciated.

I had some performances theese weeks. Some jobs as a soloist and some with choirs and others. I also played the cross flute with a choir. My flute is good again. I was devistated when it was broken but now it works as if it was new!
Thank´s to my flute teatcher Stig Hedbom who reapir flutes.

I am composing a song for a Swedish artist. I can´t say who before I know what´s gonna happen with this cooperation. It´s really a different style from what I usually compose!
I spoke to this person and got a challenge!

About a week I´m gonna write here again and tell you about what I have been doing this week.
I´m going to a special place….

On Thursday I saw Kenneth Gärdestad (Teds brother). He wrote all Teds lyrics and won a lot of prices with his music. He was also one of the composers in the Eurovision Song Contest two years ago,
Now he works as an arcitect and write lyrics only when something makes him inspired.
He has a really beutiful house and we went down into the basement to his studio where Teds piano is. The studio had a really nice design with some guitars on the wall, a sofa, one of the worlds first digital piano and some computers. It was a great feeling playing on Teds piano though it was a quite hard piano, the keys were not very touch sensitive. I played some of my songs and Kenneth gave me some comments after each song. He like my up-tempo songs best. We choose three songs that I recorded for him to put lyrics on. His son recorded it with only a Microphone and the piano straight into the computer. A demo just for him to hear the tunes.
Then he said to me ”Now I have to have some wine-drinking evenings if there is to be any lyrics”. It will be exciting to see if there will come up something.
I have a cold right now. I am so happy I got it yesterday cause I performed all weekend. On Friday I played flute at a funeral and Saturday I sang and played the piano. Straight after the cold broke out. I´m glad it happened today cause I don´t have any performances right now.

Tonight I´m having a concert at Blidö Kyrka. I will play together with the pianist Bosse Ekborg. He will play on the grand piano and I will play the flute and sometimes sing and play the piano. I´m very nervous about my flute. A friend dropped it on the floor and after that some tunes didn´t work. After awhile I played again and the tunes worked. I went away to Cyprus and now when I came back my flute doesn´t work again! I will see what happens but now I´m going away to practise with Bosse and see what soultions we have…. I hope to see you tonight at 18.00 in Blidö Kyrka.

Join me tomorrow Wednesday 31/7 at my concert on Arbetargatan 21 (Fridhemsplan at 19.30. I will play the piano and sing toghether with the cellist Cecilia Linné. Ted Gärdestad, Abba, Bellman, Elton John and my own songs. I will also play the song I wrote with Kenneth Gärdestad (Ted gärdestads brother). No entrence! Your most Welcome! 🙂

Tomorrow, 10 July I perform in Fresta Kyrka in the evening at 19. I will play Gärdestad, Abba, my own material and other songs. Cecilia Linné will play the cello. Cecilia has been on tour with Ane Brun and Maia Hirasawa. I will also play Kenneth Gärdestads and my song, that we composed togheter. He did the lyrics and I the music. Kenneth is Ted Gärdestads brother. I hope I will see you at the concert tomorrow! 🙂

Tomorrow I´m performing at Blidö Kyrka with Svante Thuresson and Victoria Tolstoj. I´m gonna perform before them with my own material, piano and song. They sing jazzmusic so my music will be something different to warm up the audience.
I have just had the cellist Cecilia Linné here and we practiced for my next concert at Fresta kyrka. I will play Ted Gärdestad, own song and Abba. I´m kind of stressed out right now cause I had to arrange cello and practice all songs for both concerts in a few days. I will go to Denmark on Thursday to Monday so every song has to be finished before.

Now the song ”Måla mig i akvarell” is almost done. The text is written by Kenneth Gärdestad and the music by me. I called Janne Schaffer today and will send it to him to see if he think it needs some guitar….
I have to arrange some cello parts for the concerts this Summer. I will perform songs written by famous swedish composers and I think it will be nice with cello as a complement to my voice and piano. I might sing some of my own songs too. Arranging music is one of my favourite things to do…. 🙂

I have been sick for a couple of weeks now. Everybody get´s a cold in the springtime, but now I´m well again.
I sang and played on a funeral this Friday and it was the first time in two weeks that I dared to take a ton, considering my cold. The performance was alright but in the end of the song my voice broke down and gave up. Out came three quite unpleasent tones. I think nobody noticed except the Cantor but for me it was a disaster…
I have been working a lot on Kenneth Gärdestads song. I wrote a melody to it and then I wrote another one since I wasn´t satisfied with it. Then I wrote some more melodies and today I wrote the final song, cause this one is a really nice melody I think. I´m gonna keep it (I hope Kenneth likes it too).
I have some performances this Summer and I think I will play this song then. It is in Swedish and it´s quite scary to sing in swedish when I´m used to english. The words feels so close and naked… But it´s a really good song he wrote…

Kenneth Gärdestad is a great song writer or maybe I should say lyricist. He wrote all of his brother Ted Gärdestads songs and also two of Teds melodies ”Jag vill ha en egen måne” and ”Hela världen runt”. I met him this Thursday to learn to know him better and then we´ll see if we will do something musical together. He is very nice. He works as an arcitect and musician, about 50-50 %. He told me ”I think that it´s important to have a life outside the music, otherwise I don´t experience enough to write about”. We talked for a couple of hours and I was quite taken by his life story.
Made me think a lot….
Yesterday I joined Svante Thuresson and Claes Crona on a concert. Svante is an artist who has been active for many years as a jazz, Sclager, and ballad singer. He had a concert on a jazzclub yesterday. I know his pianist Claes Crona, who is also an artist booker. Claes is one of the best swedish jazzpianists and he booked this concert in Täby on this jazzclub. Claes likes what i do and I like what he does, though we have different styles. He wanted me to come and see them and of course I would love to! It came quite much people. Svante sang jazz standards like ”Waltz for Debbie” and ”People who need people”. He has a fantastic voice and the audience seemed happy.
Then they gave me their flowers (Tulips) after the concert and we went home. It gave me inspiration to see how they work before, during and after the concert.

I took a day off today and focused on reading about how to practise….
Here are some pics from the concert.