Gunilla Törnfeldt was born in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1980 and grew up in a musical family with both parents being classical musicians, composers and music teachers. Singing has always been her natural way of expression, but she also early on began playing the piano and later the cello, even though the acoustic guitar replaced the cello in her twenties. Among her more significant influences, musicians and composers like Joni Mitchell, Kurt Weill, Kenny Wheeler, Nancy Wilson, Ella Fitzgerald, Bill Frisell, Keith Jarret and Maria Schneider have been important.
She was accepted at the jazz department at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm in 2001 and studied voice, improvisation, arranging and composing. She has been featured as a soloist with Monica Dominique Quintet as well as together with Carl-Axel Dominique Trio and different choirs when performing Duke Ellington’s Sacred Concerts. She have also been featured with the Laudaensemble and Georg Riedel, Jan Allan and Ove Lundin, for several tribute concerts to late Swedish saxophone player Lars Gullin and performed also the Second Soloist part in several productions of the musical African Madonna. She graduated from the Royal College of Music in 2006 and received her final exam in 2008. She became a member of the jazz vocal sextet Vocation in 2007 and participated on their second album, which was released in November 2008. Vocation played a lot of concerts and toured Sweden, Denmark and Germany, but she left the group in 2010 to focus on her solo career. She released her anticipated debut solo album with her own music, lyrics and arrangements – A Time For Everything – in 2009, which received excellent reviews.
In 2010 she was awarded a working grant from the Swedish Arts Grants Committee and she is now writing new music and planning for her next album.
Awards and scholarships 2004 Royal Academy of Music 2006 Anders Sandrew’s foundation 2006 Fasching’s Vänners Musikstipendium (Friends of Jazzclub Fasching) 2010 Swedish Arts Grants Committee
Biography
Gunilla Törnfeldt was born in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1980 and grew up in a musical family with both parents being classical musicians, composers and music teachers. Singing has always been her natural way of expression, but she also early on began playing the piano and later the cello, even though the acoustic guitar replaced the cello in her twenties. Among her more significant influences, musicians and composers like Joni Mitchell, Kurt Weill, Kenny Wheeler, Nancy Wilson, Ella Fitzgerald, Bill Frisell, Keith Jarret and Maria Schneider have been important.
She was accepted at the jazz department at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm in 2001 and studied voice, improvisation, arranging and composing. She has been featured as a soloist with Monica Dominique Quintet as well as together with Carl-Axel Dominique Trio and different choirs when performing Duke Ellington’s Sacred Concerts. She have also been featured with the Laudaensemble and Georg Riedel, Jan Allan and Ove Lundin, for several tribute concerts to late Swedish saxophone player Lars Gullin and performed also the Second Soloist part in several productions of the musical African Madonna. She graduated from the Royal College of Music in 2006 and received her final exam in 2008. She became a member of the jazz vocal sextet Vocation in 2007 and participated on their second album, which was released in November 2008. Vocation played a lot of concerts and toured Sweden, Denmark and Germany, but she left the group in 2010 to focus on her solo career. She released her anticipated debut solo album with her own music, lyrics and arrangements – A Time For Everything – in 2009, which received excellent reviews.
In 2010 she was awarded a working grant from the Swedish Arts Grants Committee and she is now writing new music and planning for her next album.
Awards and scholarships
2004 Royal Academy of Music
2006 Anders Sandrew’s foundation
2006 Fasching’s Vänners Musikstipendium (Friends of Jazzclub Fasching)
2010 Swedish Arts Grants Committee