Swedish Folk Meets American Jazz

Swedish singer and accordionist Sunniva Brynnel grew up immersed in the Swedish folk song tradition. Together with her mother, also a folk singer, she travelled far and wide to festivals, concerts and spelmansstämmor – a folk jam meet-up made up of tunes, songs and of course fika (coffe and buns).

During her masters studies in jazz at the New England Conservatory, the conservatory library staff called her up and said … “Sunniva, we’ve found an old book of Swedish folk songs in our archive. We thought of you – do you want it?” She, of course, jumped at the chance!

From this book sprung the idea of this one-off concert; Swedish folk songs performed in a jazz context, by Sunniva with her trio of students from the New England Conservatory.