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BIO
Anna Jalkéus is a Swedish singer, harpist, and composer known as a powerful, creative musician who writes genre-bending music with fearlessness and originality. She has received many national awards such as the JEN Young Composer Showcase, Swedish Monica Zetterlund and Ted Gärdestad awards, scholarship from STIM (Swedish ASCAP), and an “Outstanding Performance” award with her band in DownBeat Student Music Awards 2017. She composes for different types of ensembles, among which her piece “The Woods” for harp ensemble has been published by Lyon & Healy Music.
Since October 2021 Anna holds down the position as Lektor (Associate Professor) in Jazz Voice at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm, as the youngest person to have ever have received that title at the university to date.
Anna's main musical project "Anna Jalkéus Group" is a septet with voice and harp, two saxophones, piano, guitar, bass and drums playing her original music. In July 2019 the band went on a weeklong tour to China to great success. Their debut album “Estrogenia” was released in 2018, and LA Jazz Scene called it “a thought-provoking work of art” and “a compelling debut recording by a fascinating artist and equally compelling group” (–Doc Wendell).
Illustration by Dustin Mollick
"Anna Jalkeus has carved her way onto the jazz/fusion world with her distinct band and sound of her own.
Her debut album Estrogenia is a journey inside the artist. It’s not linear or simple. It’s a thought-provoking work of art."
"Jalkeus’ vocal range is astounding as she glides across the chord changes. Her scat-singing is otherworldly (...) harp accompaniment is melodic and skillful."
- Doc Wendell, LA Jazz Scene
The album’s title, "Estrogenia", is the name of a super heroine created by Anna; the protector of equality between all people regardless of gender, race or sexual orientation. Anna has also written and premiered a concerto for jazz voice, harp and orchestra entitled “The Rise of Estrogenia”, covering Estrogenia’s origin story and the fight against her nemesis “The Nasty Orange Monster”.
Anna was a member of the renowned jazz faculty at University of North Texas (UNT) 2017-2019, teaching voice lessons and improvisation as well as directing the award winning UNT Jazz Singers in the fall of 2018. After some years freelancing as a singer/harpist in Boston she is currently based in Stockholm, Sweden, while occasionally working in the US. When she's not performing, composing or teaching, Anna enjoys baking and horseback riding.