Susanne Sundfør & Kit Downes
Biography Susanne Sundfør & Kit Downes
Susanne Sundfør
Norwegian musician Susanne Sundfør is one of the many singer-songwriters active today. Born on March 19, 1986, in Haugesund, she has already garnered several Norwegian awards in her young career and is considered a rising star in her home country.
Susanne Sundfør performs both jazz and classical music, blending the two styles in her own inimitable way to create something entirely new. Following the albums *Susanne Sundfør*, *Take One*, and *The Brothel*, she released her fourth studio album, *The Silicone Veil*, in 2012. She usually accompanies herself on the piano during concerts. Although she also plays the guitar, she rarely does so during live performances.
Contemporary critics often compare Susanne Sundfør to musicians like Carole King. While Sundfør acknowledges in interviews that she was inspired by King, she also cites other artists such as Ane Brun, Thomas Dybdahl, Fleetwood Mac, and Jeff Buckley as influences.
Her lyrics often draw on personal experiences—as seen in the song "It’s All Gone Tomorrow" from the album *The Brothel*—though she also addresses societal themes in tracks like "Opium."
Susanne Sundfør has also been honored with the Spellemannprisen. This award is one of the most important in Norway and is considered the equivalent of the Grammy.
Kit Downes
is a BBC Jazz Award and Deutscher Jazzpreis winning, Mercury Music Award nominated, ECM recording artist, composer and performer. He has toured the world playing piano and church organ with leading artists from the classical and jazz idioms, and his compositions have been performed by Riot Ensemble, Abel Selaocoe, Klang Ensemble, Heloise Werner, Scottish Ensemble, Trondheim Jazz Orchestra, St Paul’s Orchestra in Minneapolis, and HR Radio Band in Frankfurt, at venues such as the Cologne Dom, Rewire Festival, BBC Proms, Toulouse Organ Festival, Stavanger Konserthus, London Contemporary Music Festival and Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival.
An organ scholar at St Peter Mancroft in Norwich whilst growing up, he graduated from the Royal Academy of Music in London, where he lived for 20 years. He is now living in Berlin, and performs solo pipe organ and with own ensembles (ENEMY, Exhaust and Snap II) while developing a composition practice that is informed by, and inspired by, his broad ranging collaborators. These artists include Lucy Railton, Norma Winstone, Squarepusher, Bill Frisell, Susanne Sundfjør, Andrew Cyrille, Sofia Jernberg, Mica Levi, Aidan O’Rourke and Sam Amidon.
Kit holds a Fellowship at the Royal Academy of Music in London, where he himself studied and now teaches. He has twice been awarded 1st place in Downbeat’s Critics Poll Rising Star for Organ and Keyboard categories respectively, been awarded the Paul Acket Award at North Sea Festival, and his ECM records ‘Obsidian', ‘Dreamlife of Debris' and ‘Vermillion' have been released to critical acclaim.
