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WHAT'S ON IN SWEDEN

MUSIC

What’s on in Sweden: January 23rd – 30th

Fight or Fashion? It's your pick this week, with the Swedish capital hosting its biggest Ultimate Fighting Championship to date on Saturday night, and Stockholm's Fashion Week getting underway, alongside plenty of other action elsewhere in the country.

Published: 21 January 2015 17:07 CET
What's on in Sweden: January 23rd - 30th
A Fadi el Khoury piece on display at a previous Stockholm Fashion Week. Photo: TT
Strictly Swedish fashion will dress the menu once again at this year's annual Stockholm Fashion Week, running from January 26th to February 8th. Fashion related fairs, exhibitions and other events will be held across the city, with Berns in Östermalm among this year's main hosting venues. While the fashion event is generally aimed at industry movers and shakers, some events are open to the public. 
 
A Camilla Norrback piece from a previous collection. Photo: TT
 
On Monday January 26th, The Swedish School of Textiles & Handarbetets Vänner will hold an exhibition about the value of clothes that could also be worth checking out if you're a fan of fashion. It runs from noon until 5:00 pm at the HV Galleri Handarbetets vänner in Djugården.
 
Check out the 2015 Stockholm Fashion Week's schedule for all details.
 
Meanwhile, Stockholm's Tele2 Arena is hosting 30,000 Ultimate Fighting Championship fans for what the largest mixed martial arts competition in the world is calling the "biggest night in European UFC history." 
 
Alexander Gustafsson checking in ahead of Saturday's Fight Night in Stockholm. Photo: UFC
 
It's the first time a UFC event of this magnitude has come to Stockholm and according to the UFC's regional general manager, David Allen, it has already attracted people from all over the world.
 
"Normally, these events tend to be very localized, with about 95 percent of tickets coming from the local market," he told The Local on Wednesday.
 
"But this Stockholm event is a truly international event, with ticket sales coming from 44 countries around the world."
 
Much hype is surrounding Swedish superstar Alexander "The Mauler" Gustafsson, no. 1 ranked light heavyweight contender, who is set to battle #3 ranked Anthony “Rumble” Johnson from the USA.
 
If you're further north in Sweden and looking for something a little more peaceful, why not check out the Austrian Schönbrunn Palace Ensemble which is are set to give a classic concert at Umeå's Norrland Opera on January 23rd. The orchestra of 35 esteemed musicians from Vienna are touring Scandinavia and performing in 15 leading concert halls in the region. 
 

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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.

Published: 17 November 2023 09:05 CET
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.

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