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Nils Berg

There is a particular quality to the music Nils Berg makes — something that feels simultaneously ancient and restless, rooted and searching. It is a quality that places him in a long line of Scandinavian artists who have found a way to distill the Nordic landscape and temperament into sound: the lyrical economy of Jan Johansson, the melancholy warmth of Lars Gullin, the way Grieg could make a simple folk melody feel like it carried the weight of an entire geography.

Berg, a saxophonist, bass clarinetist and composer based in Stockholm, works in the space where jazz meets that broader Nordic sensibility — music that breathes slowly, that favors atmosphere and silence as much as notes, and that treats emotion as something to be approached with patience rather than force. Dubbed "the Fellini of Swedish jazz" by Dagens Nyheter and described as "mysterious and irresistible" by Rolling Stone, he has spent two decades building a body of work that is genuinely hard to categorize, and all the more compelling for it.

His projects range from the acclaimed audiovisual ensemble Nils Berg Cinemascope — which incorporates found footage from YouTube into live performance — to chamber jazz, musical theatre, film, podcast and orchestral composition. Collaborators have included Fatoumata Diawara, the Cullberg Ballet, Håkan Hellström and Swedish Radio. In 2024 he served as composer in residence for the Grammy-nominated Norrbotten Big Band, resulting in the album Paid To Cry — a meditation on grief and release that may be his most emotionally direct work to date.

What connects it all is an artistic conscience that feels deeply rooted in the Scandinavian tradition: a refusal of bombast, a respect for melody, and an instinct for finding the profound in the quietly observed.

Awards

2024 Composer in residence for Norrbotten Big Band (2024)

2023 Receives the Cultural Grant by the city of Stockholm

2022 Swedish Grammy Nominee

2016 Artist in residence, Västerås Konserthus

2014 Swedish Arts Council - Vancouver composer's residence scholarship

2013 Swedish Arts Council - 2 year composer's scholarship

2007 Recieves the Jazz-in-Sweden award and tours with Concerts Sweden.

2000 Wins 1st prize in the Swedish national composer's competition Jazzverk 2000

Toldam / Riedel / Berg / Wiklund / Christensen: Tak for dit brev

Read "Tak for dit brev" reviewed by Troy Dostert

by Troy Dostert
October 6, 2021

Danish pianist Simon Toldam has made his mark as an abundantly creative improviser, most recently manifest on his work with Ways--a duo comprised of saxophonist Brodie West and drummer Evan Cartwright. Their Fortunes (Lorna Records, 2020) was an album defined by unusual gestures and subtle refractions, keeping the listener guessing throughout. Toldam's latest release, Tak for dit brev (the title translates as “Thank You For Your Letter") isn't as overtly adventurous, but it still possesses plenty of quiet charm, and ...

Album Review

Toldam, Riedel, Berg, Wiklund, Christensen: Tak for dit brev

Read "Tak for dit brev" reviewed by Alberto Bazzurro

by Alberto Bazzurro
April 22, 2021

Quarantadue anni, danese, il pianista (qui anche occasionalmente clarinettista) Simon Toldam dirige in questo ragguardevole album un quintetto dalla struttura eminentemente cameristica che non può non rimandare a più o meno remoti lavori di Jimmy Giuffre e di un certo cenacolo (Shorty Rogers, Shelly Manne, Ralph Peña, Buddy Collette, Bud Shank, ecc.) che a partire dalla metà degli anni Cinquanta ci hanno offerto una visione del jazz, già post-bop e di fatto anche post-cool, “ammalata" di Europa, di toni più ...

Album Review

Nils Berg Cinemascope: Vocals

by James Pearse
May 1, 2014

Swedish reed player Nils Berg scours the online world for unusual and unconventional musical performances to use as a backdrop to his music. He then edits the original down to capture the “essence" of the song and then writes new music on top. Here's where it gets really interesting: the Nils Berg Cinemascope trio then performs the new music live with a YouTube video of the original artist projected as a living backdrop. In this sense, the “guest ...

"Berg transcends conceptual cleverness; the tunes and the performances would be fantastic even without the video cameos." DOWNBEAT "The Fellini of swedish jazz" DN "Mysterious and irresistible" ROLLING STONE "Nils Berg Cinemascope is not only an exciting project with an ingenious concept that broadens my view of what live music is, it's also among the best I've heard in a long time. Really bloody good" G-P ”Nils Berg feels like some kind of new jazz musician. Personal, humble, direct and unruly”. “Music that holds more than it excludes ��" it has groove, beauty and something almost naïvely affirmative to it … A new kind of jazz” (DN) “Tenor sax player Nils Berg leads the quartet the Stoner with credit