Singer Sidsel Endresen and guitarist Stian Westerhus are among leading experimental musicians on the European scene. Their joint performance at the Nattjazz festival in Bergen last year resulted in a joint album, Didymoi Dreams.
Sidsel Endresen is a multiple award winning singer and composer for over 30 years whose music in the 80’s moved across genres and can be described as fusion, jazz-rock, chamber-jazz, while during the 90’s Sidsel intensively started to work on free improvisations, electronics and new music which became a main characteristic of her contemporary artistic expression.
Her partner on this album, guitarist Stian Westerhus, got the Molde Jazz Festival award for extraordinary talent, in Great Britain he was awarded with the ”BBC Award for Innovation in Jazz”. The British magazine JazzWise wrote about Westerhus: “It’s like this music comes from an another world, jazz loaded, but not defined by it. Welcome to the new age of improvised music.”
We’ve watched both musicians on the Jazz Fest stages in previous years, Westerhus in numerous different ensembles. His latest performance in Sarajevo was a well noted solo concert at last year’s edition of the festival.
The album Didymoi Dreams will be released 8th June by Rune Grammofon.
*photo: Stian Westerhus /15th Jazz Fest Sarajevo 2011/