Stockholm Jazz Festival – A tribute to Georg Riedel

Welcome to a star-studded and poignant tribute to Georg Riedel, one of the greatest musicians and composers of Swedish jazz. Radiojazzgruppen’s Nisse Landgren hosts the evening and pianist Calle Bagge conducts a house band featuring elite members of the Swedish jazz scene, as well as vocalists including Nicolai Dunger and Sarah Riedel.

With the passing on 25 February this year of jazz bassist, composer and arranger Georg Riedel at 90 years of age, one of the most versatile composers of Swedish music fell silent.

Georg Riedel composed music for Astrid Lindgren’s films, as well as innovative jazz for Radiojazzgruppen and his own duos, trios and quartets. His oeuvre includes opera, orchestral works and music for films, ballet and church services. He is among the musicians who brought Swedish folk music to jazz stages. Jazz på Svenska (“Jazz in Swedish”), his album with Jan Johansson, is the most sold Swedish jazz album.

To celebrate this doyen of jazz, Stockholm Jazz Festival presents a full evening at Stockholm Konserthuset, in which a wide selection of Riedel’s compositions will be performed by carefully selected artists – many of whom worked with the man himself over the past 20 years. This retrospective of Riedel’s work will link the golden age of the 1950s to contemporary jazz of the 2020s.

“Georg Riedel’s contribution is utterly massive, and so is the empty space he has left behind. But his music will live on, now and forever. It therefore feels particularly gratifying to open this year’s jazz festival with an evening that pays tribute to him,” says Eric Birath, CEO of Stockholm Jazz Festival.

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