Anna Gréta Nightjar in The Northern Sky

On her debut album, the Icelandic pianist and singer Anna Gréta, who lives in Sweden, enchants with subtle songs, her nuanced voice and expressive piano playing between jazz, indie and folk. A remarkable new player in the "Nordic Sound".

The album Star Of Spring by Anna Greta is a captivating musical journey that showcases the artist's exceptional talent and unique style. Released by Act, this album features a collection of beautifully crafted songs that blend elements of jazz, folk, and pop.

Anna Gréta goes gentle…into her second album on ACT, “Star of Spring”. The Reykjavik-born pianist, singer and a songwriter, who has lived in Stockholm since 2014, has her own refreshing way of approaching the art of quiet, artful, deeply personal songs, often drawing inspiration from the beauty and power of Iceland’s natural landscape.

Anna Gréta goes gentle…into her second album on ACT, “Star of Spring”. The Reykjavik-born pianist, singer and a songwriter, who has lived in Stockholm since 2014, has her own refreshing way of approaching the art of quiet, artful, deeply personal songs, often drawing inspiration from the beauty and power of Iceland’s natural landscape. Her 2021 ACT debut "Nightjar in the Northern Sky" was named after a bird, and this follow-up album lands gracefully on a flower, the “glory of the snow”, also known as the "star of spring", which symbolises the ending of winter and the arrival of spring. But look closer, and there are always other levels of meaning. Her "Nightjar”, the rare bird she once saw in front of the northern sky, was a metaphor for the search for the things which are special and essential. In fact, almost all of Anna Gréta's lyrics have more than one significance, and her storytelling has now taken a leap forward on "Star Of Spring". She says of the little flower on the title track: "I wasn't just inspired by the way it takes over the meadows in spring and turns them from green to blue, but also by the fact that it blooms because it is compelled to so. It cannot do anything else."

Music is feminine. And it always has been, whether in Italian, Germanand French. Viva la musica. Die Musik. Lamusique. And in jazz? During the 20th century female musicians lives were lived in the shadows. Lil Hardin, for example, wrote compositions like “Struttin‘ With Some Barbecue”, and yet while her husband Louis Armstrong was becoming famous, she was hardly noticed at all. She was, as she described it later, “standing at the bottom of the ladder holding it and watching him climb.” Since then, however, things have moved on. Progress may be slow, but things are definitely changing. In jazz, today the female element has gone way beyond just the “girl singer with a band”. It is not only quite normal for a woman to be playing electric guitar, bass, drums or trumpet, we now have musicians such as Terri Lyne Carrington serving as important role models.