Sigurdardottir/ Schultz - Brighter

Icelandic pianist Anna Gréta Sigurðardóttir moved to Stockholm in 2014. The following year, she and Stockholm-based guitarist Max Schultz met while playing with Håkan Broström's big band, New Places Orchestra. Discovering their mutual interest in the acoustic duo format of a nylon stringed guitar and acoustic piano, they started playing their original songs together. The duo's acoustic sound at the center, they expanded the setting to a quintet, featuring Joakim Milder on the saxophone, and as co-producer, Magnus Gran on the drums, Christian Spering on the double bass. Sound engineer Åke Linton joined Anna Gréta and Max, and in February 2019, they recorded 10 songs in the Svenska Grammofonstudion in Gothenburg. Deciding to add the flavors of a string quartet, Anna Gréta and Max wrote string arrangements that were recorded by Sjöströmska kvartetten (Samuel Runsteen violin, Annie Svedlund violin, Märta Eriksson viola, Lisa Reuter, cello). This album was mixed in Gothenburg by Anna Gréta and Max together with Åke Linton, who proved to be not only a fantastic sound engineer but also a talented producer with many great ideas about the music. The result is an album consisting of 10 songs, where the musicians sometimes blur the boundaries between improvisation, composition and arrangement in the creation of lyrical and melodic music.