Amanda Sedgwick
(born 1970 Stockholm, Sweden) is a jazz musician – alto saxophone - composer and arranger. She completed her studies at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm in 1995. The following year she was selected to record Jazz in Sweden, an annual series of recordings of young Swedish jazz artists issued by the ex. Concerts Sweden. The album, entitled Volt, Caprice Records, 1996, features Sedgwick’s composing and arranging for an extended ensemble with strings. During the following years Sedgwick worked throughout Europe, playing both with many of Sweden’s most renowned musicians such as Bernt Rosengren, Nisse Sandström, Sture Nordin as well as with American artists like Walter Booker, Philip Harper and Ingrid Jensen. Between the years of 2000 and 2003 Sedgwick lived in The Hague, Netherlands, where she also worked extensively, appearing at several Dutch jazz festivals. In 2004 she released her second solo album on Touché Music, entitled Reunion. The record features Philip Harper on trumpet and Sedgwick’s writing and arranging. Between the years 2004 and 2006 she lived in Atlanta, USA, where she worked as a musician and taught saxophone at Morehouse College. Now she resides in Sweden and continues to tour internationally as well as teaching and composing music.
Selected works: Sylvia, To My Friends, Rue Hamra, Blue Jay, Stay as sweet as you are, When Did You Stop Loving M, When Did I Stop Loving You, Sorcerer Of Antiquity, Ugetsu, Brown silk, Reunion.
Ana Seara
Born in 1985 she started studying music at the Conservatório de Música Calouste Gulbenkian de Braga. In 2007 she graduated in Composition at Escola Superior de Música de Lisboa. As a student of that school, she organized new composer's concerts and co-organized and produced the III, IV and V ESML Music Festival. . In 2007, she was commissioned a piece for the Young Musicians Prize, promoted by the Antena 2 radio station, and another by Orchestra Utópica, premiered at Culturgest, in Lisbon. She has also participated in the II Reading Panel of the Algarve Orchestra.
Ana Serrano van der Laan
(born in 1967 in Madrid, Spain). Singer and songwriter. She grew up in Stockholm, Sweden, moved to England during her adolescence and later to Spain, where she studied Philology of English. She began her musical career in Spain. On her first two CDs, she appeared under the pseudonym Rita Calypso for Siesta, an independent label in collaboration with producer Ramón Leal. With Siesta she participated in other projects, among them as part of the pop duo Magic Whispers. Ana Laan recorded her first solo album with her own songs with Juan Campodónico, Luciano Supervielle (Bajofondo Tango Club) and Jorge Drexler, and coproduced the album with Leo Sidran. She spent the summer of 2006 in New York recording her second disk, "Chocolate and Roses", also produced with Leo Sidran. This album was presented at the South By Southwest festival in Austin, Texas, in March 2007 and in August she went on a brief tour throughout the United States.
Selected recordings: Apocalypso - 2002 (pseudonym Rita Calypso); Sicalyptico - 2004 (pseudonym Rita Calypso); Orégano - 2004/5; Chocolate and Roses – 2007; Sopa de Almendras - 2011
Contact: www.myspace.com/analaan
