1.1 Lisa Ullén
Lisa Ullén is a composer and pianist living in Stockholm. Recorded in May 2021 in Lisa’s home, the video shows her engaged in the eternal ‘work in progress’ that she describes in the spoken interview.
1.2 Festen
Two short sets from Festen — the quartet of Lisa Ullén, Elsa Bergman, Isak Hedtjärn and Erik Carlsson. Recorded March 2021 at Fylkingen, Stockholm. Thanks to Anna Högberg and Finn Loxbo.
1.3 Leif Elggren
Leif Elggren talks about Lennart Af Larsson and Linköping. Filmed in his studio and at Fylkingen.
1.4 Raymond Strid
Raymond Strid performs solo and talks about the late Swedish saxophonist Roland Keijser. Filmed and recorded in Heby, Sweden, 23 August 2021.
Portraits produced with financial support from Kulturrådet — The Swedish Arts Council.
Lisa Ullén lives in Stockholm, but grew up in the northern part of Sweden. She is a graduate of Stockholm’s Royal College of Music where she studied classical piano in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
A versatile player with a singular musical vision, Ullén has repeatedly proven her ability to imprint her absolute sense for tonal texture on whatever musical context she appears in from duos and small group collaborations with Nina de Heney and Okkyung Lee to larger ensemble situations such as Anna Högberg Attack!, Vilhelm Bromander Initiative and her own Motståndsorkestern (Resistance Orchestra).
Leif Elggren is a Swedish artist who lives and works in Stockholm.
Active since the late 1970s, Leif Elggren has become one of the most constantly surprising conceptual artists to work in the combined worlds of audio and visual. A writer, visual artist, stage performer and composer, he has many albums to his credits, solo and with the Sons of God, on labels such as Ash International, Touch, Radium and his own Firework Edition.
His music, often conceived as the soundtrack to a visual installation or experimental stage performance, usually presents carefully selected sound sources over a long stretch of time and can range from mesmerizingly quiet electronics to harsh noise. His wide-ranging and prolific body of art often involves dreams and subtle absurdities, social hierarchies turned upside-down, hidden actions and events taking on the quality of icons.
Heby, Sweden
Born 1956,
Musician, Drums.
Free Improvisation, Free Jazz. Member of Gush since 1988, Other groups, Tarfala Trio, The Electrics, Trespass Trio, amongst others.
Isak Hedtjärn plays the clarinet — a straight, metal variant of the more common wooden B flat Clarinet.
A polymath of undeniable musicality, Isak is a constant, always invigorating presence across a breadth of ‘scenes’ in Stockholm be it via in his own groups — Grismask, Svenska Folkjazzkvartetten, Festen — or making guest appearances in concert and on record with Viagra Boys, Fire! Orchestra, Rotem Geffen, Kali Malone and many many more.
His online notoriety as @JazzIsak, the deft editor of a stream of classic jazz and tiktok dance/crash mashups is not only a riotous good time but gives you some other small window into the scope and scale of his knowledge of and feeling for all the music that has gone before.
Elsa Bergman studied double bass in Trondheim, Norway, at Sund Folkehøgskole and later at the Jazz Department of the Norwegian Academy of Music. Since then she has worked in various free jazz and improvisation groups.
She released her debut solo album 'A' in 2021.