This is my debut piano solo album, and it is a concept album which is built upon a true life story of a really remarkable man.
I first heard about Runar Husell when my husband and I crossed the Baltic Sea sailing, and arrived in Mariehamn, Aland. We both got captivated by a film at the Maritime Museum, depicting the dangerous, exciting and incredible turns in this sailor's life, where he put his astounding talents to use in an unexpected and unusual way.
The CD is accompanied of an extended online Album Experience, where the story about Runar, and also about my music philosophy and creation process of this album is told.
This album originates from a lengthy filmed improvisation that I did in collaboration with an artist, Madelene Egerfält, in which she painted what she heard me play, and I played what I saw her paint.
We both got into a state of flow and deep meditation.
The painting turned out to be amazing, and my recording of the piano contained a lot of musical material.
I decided to use the different themes and motifs as the basis for ten compositions, to form an album, while keeping as much of the original recording as possible, to preseve the feeling of that very first inspiration.
To me the best thing with Christmas is that it connects us with all the people that have come before us, through its traditions and the honoring of peace, togetherness and joy. That's why I appreciate the ancient Christmas songs so much. I can really see the people sitting solemnly in church before me, relishing the moment and looking forward to the delights of good food and playful joy during Christmas Eve.
Generation after generation. Through bad times and through good times.
And these ancient Christmas Carol melodies are SO beautiful, some of them are all the way back from the Middle Ages. It's so much fun making your own interpretations of them, and arrange them in new ways.
I was contacted by one of my listeners, Charles Eltringham-Coumbes, who was about to start working on his honors degree project, in his education to become a textile designer, specialized in knitting and weaving pattern designs.
He had this great idea to make use of brain scanning headband devices, that, when connected to the right computer apps, displays the energy activities in test persons' brains. He wanted to see what the images would be like when the persons were in different emotional moods, and use screenshots of that to create textile pattern designs.
What's the best and quickest way to evoke different emotions in people? - Yeah, right! With music! And in this case preferably with music they had never heard before, to avoid memories and associations coming into play. So he asked me if I would be willing to compose three short pieces with very defined emotional themes - one happy, one sad and one relaxed. Of course I wanted to!
The result was amazing patterns and garments by Charles, this digital three-song EP, and great memories of a really fun and inspiring project! Thank you, Charles!
I have a really sweet tooth for the melodic era of the 1970s and late -60s when it comes to pop songs, and I often come back to this repertoire.
These are all solo piano arrangements of my favorite songs from this time.
You can find them all inte the scrollable embedded Spotify playlist above.
All of the artwork images are details from etchings by one of my favorite artists, Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528), and I had a lot of fun creating them.
When I think of which 1970’s songs that are my favorites to play, this Led Zeppelin pearl is one of the first that comes to mind. Another absolute favorite of mine is the Renaissance artist Albrecht Dürer. I can’t believe how well this copper engraving of his - all the way back from 1514 - goes with this song. Not only is there a ladder in front of a dramatic sky, but also, the Melencolia and the mysterious meaning of it reflects the song so well.
Elton John wrote this hauntingly beautiful song early in his career, long before he became a Sir, and it has been played in numerous versions, both by himself and other artists. Since it’s one of my absolute favorites from the 1970’s pop era, with its sweet, innocent melody and beautifully flowing qualities, here’s my solo piano version of it!
This song is from my first idols, my childhood heroes - ABBA.
Back then I never understood this song has a really sad lyric, I just thought it was so elegant and exciting. My best friend Dina had the record, and we dressed up in her mother's high-heeled boots and lost ourselves in miming make-believe English into our hairbrush microphones. I can still feel the scent from the lipstick we borrowed from her mom in secret.
When I worked as a piano teacher I used to teach my more advanced students this song, Life on mars by David Bowie, because I think it - besides being an extraordinarily great song - has an extremely interesting harmonic pattern.
It modulates between several different keys in a way that normally would feel so turbulent it almost gave you nausea - but in this case the melody leads us through the harmonic maze in such a natural, and seemingly simple way that it all feels organic, beautiful and self-evident. That is a sign of a true master!
Just had to include a song by Paul Simon in my compilation of favorite songs from the 1970’s and -60’s pop era. The exquisite songwriting, the sweet melodies, the beautiful guitar work and the perfection of Simon & Garfunkel’s vocal harmonies cannot be forgotten.
And don't we all need to get a reminder to just sit down every once in a while, and just listen - to the sound of silence?
When I played this beautiful bach-influenced tune by Procul Harum in my live stream show Meet me at the piano a couple of years ago, and my father-in-law - Hans - gave me a call afterwards. I can't tell you how strong the memories are that come over me when I hear this song, he said. It was our special song, mine and Helena's, it's so emotional to me. And I loved your version... Helena had passed away a few years earlier, and by now Hans is also gone. Every time I play this song it reminds me of that beautiful glimpse into the feelings of those two young lovers that he gave me, and to me it is forever associated with my dear father- and mother-in-law.
This is such a sweet melody, and I love to play it.
George Harrison didn't get much chance to prove it in the Beatles, but in my opinion he was just as good a songwriter as ever John Lennon and Paul MacCartney.
My arrangement of this gem of melody was among the first songs I released in my solo piano project.
This song was written as a submission to a songwriter contest in 2022. The brief was to set a poem by Swedish poet Tomas Tranströmer to music.
Tranströmer, who lived between 1931 and 2015, was a Nobel Prize winner and one of the most beloved poets in Sweden, with a remarkable talent for painting images with words.
I chose the opening poem of his debut from 1954 'Prelude', which starts like this:
"Awakening is a parachute jump from the dream.
Freed from the choking vortex,
the diver sinks towards the green map of morning..."
That's what gave this piano piece its name.
I made a music video of it, with drone footage of me performing the song on a cliff in the Stockholm Archipelago.
Did you know that this super well known holiday melody is a really old English Christmas Carol?
I made my own piano solo version of it, playing around a bit with the meter and the rhythms. Just for the fun of it...
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