Sophie Dunér

“It’s not fusion – it’s Dúneresque – a newly created genre!” Grammy Award winning recording producer Michael Haas.

Sophie Dunér is a singer & composer with her roots in jazz. Originally from Sweden, she travels and performs internationally as her blend of jazz, world and contemporary classical writing receives demand worldwide – from the infamous CBGB´s in NYC to Buenos Aires Festival de Música Contemporánea La Plata to Festival O/Modernt in Sweden. Her new solo CD ‘Strictly Business’ (produced/recorded in London by the renown producer Darren Allison) was released in July 2022.

Previous CD’s include ‘Songs Eclectic’ (with Gene Pritsker 2020), ‘The City of Dizzy’ (with Jeremy Harman 2016), ‘The City of My Soul’ (with The Callino string Quartet) produced by Michael Haas /PARMA Recordings 2013), ‘The Rain in Spain’ (Rory Stuart, Matt Penmann & Kahlil Qwame Bell, CIMP 2005). Sophie also recorded a CD of standards in 2014 together with the late, legendary avant garde jazz bassist Dominic Duval (who spent a decade with Cecil Taylor).

Her music may be described as a blend of the romantic and the spiritually elevated with a dissonant, bold and satirical edge, playing with tense colours resolving into romantic harmony or vice versa. Often, it’s loud and dynamic. With musical roots in jazz, Sophie personally draws heavily on a variety of composers such as Kurt Weill, Thelonious Monk, Charles Mingus, Hans Werner Henze, Dizzy Gillespie & Igor Stravinsky.

Other festivals include November Music Festival (N.L), The 13th & 14th Charles Mingus Virtual Festival (N.Y.C), PARMA Music Festival (US), Bimbache Open Art Festival, Jazz en La Costa, Getxo Jazz Festival, Festival de Jazz de Lugo(ES), Baltic Jazz Festival (SF), Sapporo Snow Festival (JP), Stockholm New Music Festival, Stockholm Jazz Festival (SWE), etc.

Tours include dates at venues such as NYC’s The ShapeShifter Lab, The Delancey, Harlem Jazz Boxx, Cornelia St Cafe, Symphony Space, Small’s, Kostabi World, The Bop Shop, Michiko Studios etc. Europe include dates at Sowieso/Neukoln (DE), Moods (CH), The Pizza Express (UK), Circulo de Bellas Artes (ES), Gothenburg Symphony Hall (SWE) etc.

As a singer & composer, Sophie has had collaborations with musicians such as Tommy Campbell, Gerry Brown, Steve Hamilton, Sébastien Dubé, Samuel Torres, Bertram Lehman, Carli Munoz, Guy Livingston, Eleonor Sandresky, Cynthia Yeh, Valery Ponomarev, Melissa Slocum, Leif Jordansson, Jürg Wickihalder, Hugo Ticciati etc. and composers José Luís Greco, Francis Schwartz (composers who wrote ‘Checkmate My Love’ & ‘The Neon Pterodactyl’ for her) and Henk Alkema.

At the recommendation of Karlheinz Stockhausen, Sophie studied vocal interpretation at the Stockhausen summer Courses in Kuerten, Germany for two years, supported by a grant from The Swedish Arts Council. She also studied at Berklee College of Music in Boston, earning a degree in Performance, specializing in jazz improvisation with Hal Crook, George Garzone & Ed Tomassi. While in Boston, she performed & recorded with jazz groups such as The Herb Pomeroy’s Big Band, Guillermo Klein & The Big Van (featuring Seamus Blake, Mark Turner & Aaron Goldberg). In N.Y, with Fernando Tarrés (featuring Dan Rieser, Fernando Huergo & Don McCaslin). She also founded The Sophie Dunér Orchestra, touring in the Boston area, Scandinavia & Japan.The Swedish Arts Council awarded Sophie grants on 4 occasions.

Sophie Duner Quartet at Kavehaz Jazz Gallery

Source: All About Jazz
August 31, 2005

The Art Music Lounge (USA)

“ Her vocal delivery is forceful, with a high register that sounds like Arthur Blythe, a low range that booms out like Armstrong’s, adding a touch of Karlheinz Stockhausen. Quite simply, there is no one else like her in the entire world; she is one of a kind, an artist who broke her own mold and lives to be a performer on the edge.”

Jazz da Gama (CA)

“…both stretching vocal and instrumental technique so that she not only fits the music of the 20th and 21st centuries, but seemingly all of the desperate fear and unbridled joy of human existence into every the extraordinary lyric.”