Tona Serenad presents 'Nocturnal' - an evening of film score, acoustic arrangements, free-folk and romantic melody. Matti Bye is widely considered as one of Sweden's most important composers of film scores and an extraordinary performer with his own, incomparable style of improvisation on the piano. Derek Gripper's latest recording 'One Night on Earth: Music from the Strings of Mali', sees him arranging and performing on classical guitar the compositions of legendary Malian musicians Toumani Diabaté, Ali Farka Touré and Ballaké Sissoke. Directorsound is the musical moniker of Dorset born multi-instrumentalist Nicholas Palmer, who since 2001 has been releasing records constructed of narrative driven instrumentals that mesh pan-European folk styles whilst whimsically veering from ebullient exuberance to poignant reflection.

www.tonaserenad.com/

MATTI BYE (Sweden)

Matti Bye (born 1966) is widely considered as one of Sweden's most important composers of film scores and an extraordinary performer with his own, incomparable style of improvisation on the piano. He is also widely recognized for having written a series of innovative scores for such early Swedish silent film classics as Phantom Carriage by Victor Sjöström, Häxan by Benjamin Christensen, and Gösta Berling Saga by Mauritz Stiller, now included on a 6 DVD box set released by Svensk Filmindustri, SF, as well as countless other silent films. Last year he wrote the score for Academy Award nominee Jan Troell's latest feature Everlasting Moments and Stig Björkmans "Scenes from a playhouse" – a documentary about Ingmar Bergman.

Matti Bye's work is also concerned with the tension, which exists between moving image, sound and music. He has recently engaged with collaborative projects involving an esthetic and performative language proper to the contemporary visual arts. Beyond the medium, his work takes the viewer on a unique and lyrical journey of the world of dreams and illusions through a multi-sensorial experience of storytelling.

www.mattibye.com/




DEREK GRIPPER (South Africa)

In his latest recording “One Night on Earth: Music from the Strings of Mali”, Derek Gripper has arranged and performed on classical guitar the compositions of legendary Malian musicians Toumani Diabaté, Ali Farka Touré and Ballaké Sissoke. The extraordinary feat of this recording can only be imagined when one considers that this music was originally composed for and played on the kora, a 21 string African harp-lute, one of Africa’s most beautiful of instruments. UK’s top world music publication Songlines Magazine called the album ”a staggering achievement,” selecting the recording as a Top of the World album in March 2013.

The release has seen a storm of international and local invitations, with Derek performing in the last few months in Sweden, Norway, Turkey and the Ellnora Guitar Festival in USA where he shared the bill with blues legend Buddy Guy and flamenco master Paco Pena as well as Kaki King, Dweezil Zappa and many others. World renowned classical guitar legend John Williams heard One Night on Earth and immediately invited Derek to join him for a concert at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London next year. Derek will play this concert during a tour which will take him back to Norway and Sweden as well as to Holland, Wales and the US for a guitar festival in New York. Breaking away from the world of music, Derek has also become the first South African artist to be commissioned to create an artwork for the city of Stockholm: a multi layered sound work composed and recorded by Derek will run in Stockholm for one year, starting in September 2014.

www.derekgripper.com/


DIRECTORSOUND (U.K.)

Directorsound is the musical moniker of Dorset born multi-instrumentalist Nicholas Palmer. Since 2001's debut 'Redemptive Strikes' (Geographic / Domino) Palmer has been releasing a series of records constructed of narrative driven instrumentals that mesh pan-European folk styles whilst whimsically veering from ebullient exuberance to poignant reflection. This technique culminated in 2013's release of his critically acclaimed 'Romantic-Folk-Horror' record, 'I Hunt Alone' on London label Second Language.

After having re-imagined the one-man band concept through the simultaneous utilisation of myriad junk-shop and home-made acoustic instruments the live-act now invites a revolving line up of musicians into Directorsound’s blend of free-folk and romantic melody.