SHARE
COPY LINK
THE LOCAL LIST

MUSIC

Top five winter festivals in Sweden

Autumn has swept into the country and chilly days lie ahead. But there are plenty of winter festivals where you can warm up in the coming months. With tickets already selling fast, here are The Local's top tips.

Top five winter festivals in Sweden
Speak Percussion will perform at Connect in Malmö in November. Photo: Connect
1. Sónar
Based in balmy Barcelona, the Sónar team brought their hot concept to Sweden for the first time in February 2014, with leading artists from the Nordic electronic music scene joining forces with international DJs including Bonobo, James Holden and Iberia. The festival returns to Stockholm's Waterfront Congress Centre in the New Year. The line-up has yet to be announced, but events will take place on three stages for 3,600 party goers. 
13th – 14th February 2015
 

Sonar 2015 takes place at Stockholm's Waterfront Congress Centre. Photo: TT
 
2. Vinterfest
Celebrating ten years as one of Sweden's biggest classical music festivals in 2015, Vinterfest takes place in Dalarna in the heart of the Swedish countryside and promises sparking performances as the town glistens in the winter snow. Previous ice cool performers include Sweden's opera queen Anna Larson and acclaimed French pianist Julien Quentin.
5th – 8th February 2015
 

Vinterfest takes place in Darlana in rural central Sweden. Photo: TT
 
3. Connect, Malmö
Fusing contemporary and classical music, November's Connect festival will see Alice in Wonderland set to a soundtrack of Philip Glass. Elena Casoli is among those also taking to the stage, blending classic and electric guitar performances, while Speak Percussion will take ticket holders into a surreal world where musical instruments meet vintage cassette recorders and 80's keyboards. Festival favourites, Kreutzer Quartet, will be returning too.
19th – 22nd November 2014
 

Kreutzer Quartet will perform in Malmö. Photo: TT
 
4. Stockholm Jazz Festival, Stockholm
One of Sweden’s oldest festivals, this annual event takes place over ten days with more than 100 concerts in 30 different venues. Internationally renowned jazz artists including Wayne Shorter, José James, Jamie Cullum and Django! are among the names on the bill.
10th – 19th October 2014
 

Angie Stone has previously performed at the Stockholm Jazz Festival. Photo: TT
 
5. Stockholm Rocks, Gröna Lund, Stockholm
Scandinavian hard rock and heavy metal bands will thrash their way into Sweden's most famous amusement park Gröna Lund this winter. Pretty Maids, Eclipse, and Outloud are the main names announced so far.
7th November 2014
 

Rock fans at a previous gig at Gröna Lund. Photo: TT
 
Additional research by Mimmi Nilsson

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.

CULTURE

New songs mark sixth anniversary of French star Johnny Hallyday’s death

Fans of the late Johnny Hallyday, "the French Elvis Presley", will be able to commemorate the sixth anniversary of his death with two songs never released before.

New songs mark sixth anniversary of French star Johnny Hallyday's death

Hallyday, blessed with a powerful husky voice and seemingly boundless energy, died in December 2017, aged 74, of lung cancer after a long music and acting career.

After an estimated 110 million records sold during his lifetime – making him one of the world’s best-selling singers -Hallyday’s success has continued unabated beyond his death.

Almost half of his current listeners on Spotify are under the age of 35, according to the streaming service, and a posthumous greatest hits collection of “France’s favourite rock’n’roller”, whose real name was Jean-Philippe Leo
Smet, sold more than half a million copies.

The two new songs, Un cri (A cry) and Grave-moi le coeur (Engrave my heart), are featured on two albums published by different labels which also contain already-known hits in remastered or symphonic versions.

Un cri was written in 2017 by guitarist and producer Maxim Nucci – better known as Yodelice – who worked with Hallyday during the singer’s final years.

At the time Hallyday had just learned that his cancer had returned, and he “felt the need to make music outside the framework of an album,” Yodelice told reporters this week.

Hallyday recorded a demo version of the song, accompanied only by an acoustic blues guitar, but never brought it to full production.

Sensing the fans’ unbroken love for Hallyday, Yodelice decided to finish the job.

He separated the voice track from the guitar which he felt was too tame, and arranged a rockier, full-band accompaniment.

“It felt like I was playing with my buddy,” he said.

The second song, Grave-moi le coeur, is to be published in December under the artistic responsibility of another of the singer’s close collaborators, the arranger Yvan Cassar.

Hallyday recorded the song – a French version of Elvis’s Love Me Tender – with a view to performing it at a 1996 show in Las Vegas.

But in the end he did not play it live, opting instead for the original English-language version, and did not include it in any album.

“This may sound crazy, but the song was on a rehearsal tape that had never been digitalised,” Cassar told AFP.

The new songs are unlikely to be the last of new Hallyday tunes to delight fans, a source with knowledge of his work said. “There’s still a huge mass of recordings out there spanning his whole career,” the source said.

SHOW COMMENTS