Cecilia Wennerström Cecilia Wennerströmis a jazz musician, saxophone player, composer and arranger, educated at the music academies in Malmoe and Gothenburg. She was born in 1947 and lives in Stockholm, Sweden.
Awards:
2014: Grant from SKAP (the Swedish Society of Songwriters, Composers and Authors)
2013: Financial support from the Swedish Arts Council for CD Lydian Mars
2011: Scholarship award from STIM (the Swedish Performing Rights Society)
2010: 1-year music working grant from the Swedish Arts Grants Committee
2008: Författarnas Fotokopieringsfonds Punktstipendium (as an author(!))
1993: 1-year music working grant from the Swedish Arts Grants Committee
1986: 1-year music working grant from the Swedish Arts Grants Committee
1983: 1-year music working grant from the Swedish Arts Grants Committee
Below is some history:
SALAMANDER
From 1979-91 she was the leader of Salamander, a quintet(most of the time) that toured a lot in Sweden and Europe on festivals and clubs. Salamander made its debut 1981 at the Women´s Jazz Festival in Kansas City, USA, and the concert made the late jazz critic Leonard Feather write an article about the group (read it here), something which hadn´t happened to a Swedish group since Åke Hasselgård. The same year Salamander played at the North Sea Jazz Festival with such a success that the band was engaged for an extra concert the next day, and later on for the next year as well.
KURT OLSSON
In 1986 she got an offer to play baritone saxophone and flute with the Kurt Olsson Ladies Orchestra. This cooperation with the Swedish actor and comedian "Kurt Olsson"(Lars Brandeby) started out as a "just for fun" thing but soon grew to enormous success with lots of TV-programs, recordings and shows during 1987-91, the peak of it all being when the Kurt Olsson team was Swedens contribution to the TV-festival in Montreux 1989 and won the Chaplin Prize.
MARIE SELANDER/S NO W
In 1990 she started working with the talented singer and voice art performer Marie Selander in several creative and exciting projects, like for instance Maries composition "Blåst-Tuuli-Wind" that was performed in Kallio-Kuninkala Festival, Finland, 1996. In june 1999 the project toured to Wales. The cooperation with Marie continued in the jazz/world music group SNOW, which also includes the gifted drummer and composer Lise-Lotte Norelius. SNOW made its Swedish festival debut at the Umeå Folk Music Festival in 1997 and toured in the Faroe Islands in 1998.
BIG BANDS
>For several years (2004-2008) she played baritone saxophone with legendary Gugge
Hedrenius Big Blues Band and also in Gugges 18 piece band Gugge Hedrenius
Rhytm & Blues Jazz Orchestra which opened the Stockholm Jazz Festival 2005
and played at the Kristianstad Jazz festival 2006. Here are some review
excerpts from the concerts with GHBBB/GHR:
"Barytone saxofone player Cecilia Wennerström made an
introduction to "Soul Shoutin'" that literally made the audience loose its
breath. Here she really got the opportunity to show her high standard. ..."
Kjell Stockhaus, Nerikes Allehanda 060511
" ... In this 18 piece band, moreover, are a bunch of splendid soloists, like
Bosse Broberg, Lars Lindgren, Hector Bingert, Cecilia Wennerström. Johan Hörlén
and Dicken Hedrenius." DIG-Music Gunnar Holmberg 050721
" ... Most of the solo acts are, however, very enjoyable. Here one must mention
the only female member of the big band, the baritone sax player Cecilia
Wennerström, who shows a bold and accurate style of playing." Henrik Sjögren,
Falu Kuriren 050211
>The all nordic women big band April Light Orchestra had Wennerström as a member 1994-96 when the band toured in Denmark, Sweden and China, and also in 2000 when touring in Finland.
>For some years, starting with 1994, she played baritone saxophone with the internationally known Swedish tenor saxophone player Nisse Sandström's 10-piece band which played transcriptions of Miles Davis/Gil Evans tuba band music. Among many memorable concerts is one with Rolf Ericson on trumpet at the festival Jazz at Nyköpingshus 1995.
>One of Swedens best jazz singers, Peo Jönis, was until 2013 the leader of a ladies big band, Satin Dolls, where Wennerström played the baritone sax for several years and also did some arranging for the band. Satin Dolls was an entertainment band and worked a lot in Swedish television during the 90es.
CECILIA WENNERSTRÖM QUARTET
recorded its first CD in 1997, the first one in Cecilia´s own name(Cecilia Wennerström/Minor Stomp/Four Leaf Records/FLCCD 157). The other members are Ann Blom(piano), Filip Augustson(bass), Henrik Wartel(drums).Here she returns to the small group format and explores classical, bebop/cool-oriented jazz. In 2001 came the second CD: Cecilia Wennerström Quartet with Ellekari Larsson/Stuck Zipper/Four Leaf Records FLCCD 174. The band has played in Sweden, France and Italy.