Anna Ternheim – live at The Cirkus, Stockholm – March 14, 2016 – Sveriges Radio P3 –
Anna Ternheim tonight. Jumping into something a bit more contemporary than what I’ve been running these past few weeks. Anna Ternheim has been around for a while, since 2003. She has six albums to her credit and a slew of singles. She’s spent time in the states. She’s lived in Georgia, and has recently been working on her seventh album, recording in Brooklyn. She is as familiar to audiences in the States as much as she’s familiar with audiences in her native Sweden. Though she is probably more familiar to American audiences by way of her music winding up in films and on TV. Her music has an ability to connect with audiences in a profound way. Her abilities as a singer-songwriter are captivating as is her singing.
This concert was recorded at The Cirkus in Stockholm on March 14th of this year. It was recorded and preserved for posterity by the venerable Sveriges Radio and was broadcast a few months ago.
Listening to an artist like Anna Ternheim, I’m reminded of just how wide and all-encompassing the playing field of contemporary Pop music has become. Like many artists the past ten or so years, they are from other points in the world, other musical hotbeds of activity, and that more than sums up how versatile and diverse we’ve become. It gives every indication that musical ideas are running around everywhere – and that if we get out of the mainstream for a bit, sample what else is going on in the world, there is a vast reservoir to tap from. As I said before, Anna Ternheim’s music and lyrics are captivating and have an ability to connect with audiences in a profound way – this pays off in influence; picking up nuance, points of view, approaches that may not be discovered if we exclude the other voices and styles at our disposal from places we may not be familiar with.
It has become a favorite subject of mine in recent years, to hammer away at the positive aspects that diversity in music have for our musical community – that we get a lot more opportunities to pick up on things than we could have before. We have access now – and the idea of being able to stream a concert like this from Sweden; to sit with it and absorb it, is really one of the fun parts of life and what the musical journey is all about.
Anna Ternheim has something to say, and she says it with grace and eloquence – and we’re all better off for it. Seriously.
Crank it up and relax.
