Viktoria Tolstoy
(Website)
Viktoria Tolstoy is a highly celebrated and respected international jazz vocalist and her numerous success stories are all a product of this explosive natural supertalent. Viktoria has never taken a single singing class thus she also owns that little perfect difference that delivers her clearly strong and wonderfully untamed, vibrant sound. She’ll capture the moment on any given occasion and will outperform herself from one grand evening to the next.
Viktoria reaches all the way and her colorful, spontaneous persona will by all means make one forget to breathe for not only a short moment. Viktoria is already on the very top, yet once again aiming up.
Viktoria has been saluted by media wherever she has landed since she first grabbed that microphone, and rest assure, this show will go on. We suggest you buckle up. Expect a lot.
Albums
My Russian Soul
Label: ACT
Distribution in France: Harmonia Mundi
Release date: September 26, 2008
On My Russian Soul, the Swede with Russian ancestors shows us another facet of her glamorous personality with her brilliant and expressive voice. For many years now, the great-grand daughter of Leo Tolstoy has been keen to explore her Russian musical roots. “I had a conversation with Siggi Loch concerning that side of my music some time ago, but I didn’t feel experienced enough for a project that big then. Russian music out of the classical genre has been adapted every now and then by jazz musicians – think of Ellington’s ‘Nutcracker Suite’ – but never by a singer.”
Together with ACT colleague and star trombonist Nils Landgren, producer already on her first two albums, Tolstoy finally dared to attempt this undertaking. Jacob Karlzon, who was responsible for most of the excellent arrangements, belongs to the well-established team that Viktoria and Nils formed around them; saxophone player Joakim Milder is responsible for two arrangements including all the string parts. Another important role is played by a first time collaborator of Tolstoy’s – all but two of the extraordinary lyrics are written by Anna Alerstedt, a young, still quite unknown songwriter from Göteborg. A musician-friend introduced her to Viktoria Tolstoy, who explained the project to her, and the partnership blossomed shortly thereafter. “I sent her some music in the morning”, Tolstoy remembers, “and in the afternoon the ready-made lyrics came to my place. She’s unbelievably fast. And the results have always been perfect.”
picture of me
Label: ACT
Release date: September 22, 2006
“We should not take life too seriously all the time”, says Viktoria Tolstoy, which does not go to say that she makes life simpler than it is.
Pictures Of Me, the singer’s third release on ACT makes the impossible seem easy: It celebrates profundity with ease, retains artistic integrity, yet oozes a feelgood spirit that is infectious, and shows that even some of pop’s greatest masterpieces can still be perfected further. An amazing feat!
Collaborating with her long time piano player Jacob Karlzon and her current producer, the amazing bass player and cellist Lars Danielsson, she has found wonderful arrangements for their convincing adaptations.
On Pictures Of Me Viktoria Tolstoy’s singing is especially poignant on the five originals written for her by Lars Danielsson, Caecilie Norby, Jacob Karlzon and – as lyricist –
On Tour
- May 27: Blois, France- Cinema les Lobis