About Sidsel Endresen

Sidsel Endresen (born June 19, 1952) is a Norwegian jazz singer from Oslo, Norway. She is one of those creative vocal artists who are extremely difficult to describe properly. Her music often has some electronic backing, some jazz elements, some folk elements, some non-mainstream-pop elements, and an experimental flavour but doesn't fall into the styles of music usually called experimental. She has a deep, haunting voice and she sings music full of ripples of sound, connotation, and allusion. Sidsel Endresen has been active in the Norwegian music scene since the early 80's. All the time she had been leaping between genres generating a profile spanning from multimedia performances to symphonic music. She have soloed with choir, collaborated with poets, but all the time with her own voice as instrument. Her use of the voice has inspired several of the young Norwegian jazz artists. She first got noticed in the eighties as part of the Jon Eberson Group (1981-1987), with whom she recorded five albums and won two Norwegian Grammy Awards. In 1989 Sidsel signed to the German label ECM Records and released two solo CDs - So I Write (1990) and Exile (1994) which won her much critical acclaim internationally. During the years Endresen has recorded with many musicians, but she is best known for her solo work and her on-going collaboration with keyboard player and head of Jazzland Records Bugge Wesseltoft. The pair recorded two albums together in 1994 (Nightsong and Duplex Ride, both on Curling Legs/ACT), and another one, Out Here. In There in 2002, which got awarded yet another Norwegian Grammy. Wesseltoft was also responsible for producing her superb first album for Jazzland, Undertow, in 2000, together with Audun Kleive, Patrick Shaw Iversen, Roger Ludvigsen, Bugge Wesseltoft and Nils Petter Molvær. The record was nominated for the Norwegian Grammy award in 2000. Extensive touring in Norway and Europe followed. Her production includes music for theatre and dance performances, festival compositions for Molde International Jazz Festival in 1993 and for Nattjazz (Nightjazz) in Bergen in 2002. She is soloist and co-composer in the one-woman-opera Lautleben (performed at Ultima 1999, Festspillene i Bergen 2000, Stockholm 2001 and in United Kingdom, 2001). In 2000 she wrote music for Runi Langum's film Expedition. Between 1995 and 1999 Endresen participated in free improvising vocal trio Ese, together with Elin Rosseland and Eldbjørg Raknes. The trio wrote commissioned pieces for Vossa Jazz 1996, NRK 1997 and released the CD GACK (Jazzland/Kemistri 1999). http://www.sidselendresen.com