Songs for Harmonica Sigmund Groven & Ivar Anton Waagaard

• Kristian Lindeman (b. 1942):
• 1 Sommerflørt 04:24
• 2 Letter to George 03:50
• 3 Elegi 03:31
• 4 Lokk 01:12
• 5 Liden Kirsten 02:32
• 6 Der skreg en fugl 02:06
• 7 Lite stykke 01:42
• 8 Sommerfugl 02:49
• 9 Nocturne 03:57
• 10 Champs-Élysées 02:42
• 11 Wedding Psalm 02:02
• 12 Romantikk 02:01
• 13 Bånsull 01:51
• 14 Ridder Sigmund 01:53
• Total Runtime 36:32

Info zu Songs for Harmonica

Dreamy melodious harmonica music. The harmonica’s grand ambassador Sigmund Groven is out with melodious music written by Kristian Lindeman. In a duet with Groven’s close collaborator throughout 30 years, Ivar Anton Waagaard, they present beautiful melodies with refined harmonisation. Groven plays the dreamy melodies with the presence and ease that has created his international carrier. The harmonica and the piano embrace each other in a way only 30 years of making music together can evoke.

The tracks were written for different occasions over many years, often for other instruments than the harmonica. The arrangements on the album are new for this recording, which is produced by Kristian Lindeman, Helge Lindeman, Sigmund Groven and Morten Hermansen.

Sigmund Groven, harmonica
Ivar Anton Waagaard, grand piano

Sigmund Groven
”In the right hands the lowly mouth-organ can be an instrument of great beauty and sophistication. Sigmund Groven, like Tommy Reilly and Larry Adler before him, makes full use of the wide range and tonal expressions that the harmonica is capable of. His musicianship is superb, and he now unquestionably reigns supreme as one of the finest exponents of the harmonica in the world.” (Sir George Martin, producer of The Beatles)

For more than three decades Sigmund Groven has had an international career as soloist, composer and recording artist. He was born in Heddal, Telemark, Norway, into a musical family; his uncle, Eivind Groven, was a composer and musicologist.

Sigmund’s interest in the harmonica was aroused at the age of nine upon hearing a record of the legendary harmonica pioneer, the late Tommy Reilly, who became his source of inspiration as a musician, his mentor, and close associate. They appeared together in concert and on radio and TV in Europe and North America, and in 1976 they recorded a duo album of original works written for them by such composers as Robert Farnon, Gordon Jacob, James Moody, and Vilem Tausky.

Sigmund plays a custom-made silver concert harmonica and his repertoire ranges from popular and folk music to his own compositions, from Bach to contemporary music. “Grieg Album”, the latest addition to his discography of more than 20 albums, featuring his interpretations of Edvard Grieg’s music in collaboration with the Norwegian Radio Orchestra, Kåre Nordstoga and Ivar Anton Waagaard, was released in October 2007 to enthusiastic reviews. Other landmarks in his recording career are two CDs with the Norwegian Radio Orchestra: an album of works for harmonica and orchestra by Sir George Martin, as well as his arrangements of Lennon / McCartney songs and other shorter pieces, which was followed by ”PhilHarmonica”, a CD of serious original works by Milhaud, Villa-Lobos and Scandinavian contemporary composers. 2007

Ivar Anton Waagaard
is Associate Professor of Accompaniment at the Norwegian Academy of Music. He has toured throughout Norway, in a number of European and Asian countries, and in the US, with Sigmund Groven and other major Norwegian artists. He has performed a number of times at the Bergen International Festival, and has also appeared at several other festivals in Norway. From 1995–2007 Waagaard was the regular accompanist for the Queen Sonja International Music Competition, and he has served as repetiteur at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts and the Norwegian National Opera and Ballet. He has participated in hundreds of radio and TV broadcasts, contributed to several dozen recordings, played music for films and radio and TV theatre, and also served as orchestra pianist for the Norwegian Radio Orchestra on numerous occasions. His experience as a pianist also includes a variety of genres within cabaret, revue, and other forms of musical theatre. During the last few years Waagaard has recorded on CD classical Norwegian songs with opera singer Svein Bjørkøy, American cabaret songs with singer Tora Augestad, a Grieg Album with Sigmund Groven, Norwegian music for two pianos with pianist Jorunn Marie Bratlie, and a solo album with George Gershwin’s complete piano music.

Dieses Album enthält kein Booklet