PRojects
Vilja-Louise is a rare singer who can create entire musical worlds with nothing but her voice. Singing from the Source is an unaccompanied solo album in which she sings powerful yet intimate interpretations of traditional folk songs from Sweden, Appalachia and Ireland.
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The album captures the vitality and resonance of a concert, shimmering with variety and nuance. The spellbinding quality of Vilja-Lousie’s voice strokes your cheek with velvet and tickles your neck with a light breeze. It is tender, raw, unearthly and beautiful.
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Singing from the source is Vilja-Louise’s debut album. It is a result of three years of artistic research at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm, Sweden.
From the Land of the Midnight Sun comes this hauntingly beautiful a-capella trio. Discover captivating, strong and magical music with arrangements filled with innovative rhythmical beats, power and humour as well as heart.
Vanja Modigh draw from their rich Nordic folk heritage, mixing original material with their own arrangements of traditional songs in a new and authentic way. Vanja Modigh bring the colourful northern lights to their performance and create a sound that won’t leave anyone unmoved.
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In the winter of 2019, the vocal trio Vanja Modigh releases there first full-length album - "Vocal Tradition".
Two Sisters will be a storytelling theatre production with Vilja-Louise and Unna Music Theater’s Anders Peev and Johan Theodorsson.
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Based on traditional Swedish folk tales and the Scandinavian ballad ”Två Systrar”, (”The Singing Bone” in English) this story of rivalry between two sisters has variants found in Pakistan as well as in Europe and Scandinavia.
Exploring themes of love, betrayal and honor culture, Two Sisters will become a touring performance with contemporary compositions as well as traditional music, for storyteller, two nyckelharpas and voice.
The performance will be launched in winter 2020 in Stockholm, Sweden.
The name and form of the Swedish dance, polska, has its background in Renaissance Poland. And now, a few hundred years later, a group of Polish and Swedish musicians are rediscovering the common roots and evolution of their folk melodies and dances. The question is - Can they find tunes that are related after all this time?
By following the trace of melodies, rhythms and songs, the group discover the richness and kinship of Polish and Swedish traditional music. This project and collaboration led to eight medleys of musical dialogues, based on the oldest historical recordings of ”Polish dances”, transcriptions that were found in archives, as well as the living tradition of the music from both countries.
This journey was documented with an album (2016) and the whole process was beautifully captured by documentary film director Tomasz Knittel. The Documentary ”Polska Dance Paths” has been shown on Polish national television as well as at numerous film festivals around Europe. Their concerts were recorded by Swedish national radio SR.
Vilja-Louise is working in an ongoing collaboration with her partner, the Scottish painter, Ewan McClure. As an artist couple, they explore and deepen their respective thoughts and ideas, making paintings, videos and fine art photography.
Vilja-Lousie often features in Ewan’s paintings, and during the summer of 2018, he honoured her with a solo exhibition dedicated to her and their shared time in Sweden. The exhibition consisted of 15 portraits and the name of the exhibition was ”Nordic Muse”. Vilja-Louise created a video with her singing and documenting their painting process in their previous studio on an small island in the archipelago of Stockholm.
Some of the portraits, together with new work, will be shown in Ewan McClure’s solo exhibition at the Scottish Gallery in Edinburgh from June 28th 2019.
A project in the making, where Vilja-Louise will dive in to archives and field recordings of Gaelic and Scottish lyrics and songs. It's a meeting with the new landscape which surrounds her, the land of Scotland.
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What happens when a Swedish folk singer finds and interprets these traditional songs with her voice and experience? Will there be familiarity or unknown ground?
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Working with traditional material as well composing music, Vilja-Louise will explore the meeting between her own tradition, her inner musical world and the breathtaking sounds of Scotland.
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This is an ongoing project and the release date is yet to be confirmed.
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