Laila Andersson

On "Your Requests" Canadian singer and pianist Laila Biali fulfills the musical wishes of her fans. Fresh versions of classics from the Great American Songbook with a prominent line-up featuring Kurt Elling, Larnell Lewis, Grégoire Maret, Anat Cohen, Emilie-Claire Barlow and many more.

Laila Biali masterfully mixes jazz and pop: “Already highly acclaimed in North America, with Laila Biali’s mellifluous vocals, dynamic pianism and ability for penning, hook-laden songs that reputation is surely going to flourish further afield."

Gösta Nystroem may have been diffident in his life decisions – he only chose music as a career in his mid-thirties – but it is clear from the two works on this 2004 BIS release that he was an earnest composer indeed when he set his mind to it. Perhaps too earnest: the Symphony No. 4, "Sinfonia shakespeariana," and the Symphony No. 6, "Sinfonia Tramontana," are long essays of some technical competence, but also unrelievedly gray, joyless creations that require a great deal of patience to get through.