Biography

Simon Stålspets

Professional musician since 1990, has been touring in Sweden and almost all over Europe with different music bands: Svart Kaffe, Kalabra, Lystra and Marsipan.

In 1996 he achieved Master in fine art at the Royal Music Academy in Stockholm in electric guitar and in 2000 in music composition.

With Kalabra he won the international folkmusic competition in Kaustinen Folk Music Festival in 1998 and he was granted the Royal Music Academy scholarship in 2000 and Stim scholarship 2002.

He composes contemporary music for the Royal Opera Choir in Stockholm, Linnékvintetten, Mårten Falk & George Gulyas guitar duo and also makes arrangements for the bands he plays in.

Sérgio Crisóstomo

Professional musician since 1994, he is a classical formed violin player. Besides his classical work, he has developed through the years a special interest in folk music, adapting the violin to multiple music styles.

He was granted the Gulbenkian music scholarship during his conservatoire violin studies and in 2000 he was invited to represent Portugal in a Folk music meeting camp in Brittany-France.

Since 1998 he has been touring around Europe and China with different projects. Besides his instrumental career he is also choir conductor.

Liana

Performing on stage since 1989, she won twelve prizes of thirteen contests she entered, among them: 1994 and 1996 the "Grande Noite do Fado" at the National Coliseum in Lisbon being the first singer to win two prizes in this contest, and 2000 for the National State Television (RTP) "Festival da Canção".

From 2000-2005 she played the role of Amália in the most successful musical ever in Portugal dedicated to the great diva Amália Rodrigues.

She toured in Australia, Canada, United States, Brazil and Europe. She also performs distinct styles from jazz standards to musical hits combining her solo career with ventures in other music projects.

Filip Jers

Filip Jers started to study at the Jazz Department at the Royal Academy of Music in Stockholm in 2006 as the first harmonica player ever and will have a Bachelor Degree in 2009. He plays both chromatic and diatonic harmonica. Filip has played different styles of music but mainly focuses on jazz and folk music. He plays in a lot of own and different musical projects with everything from jazz standards, original music to free-improvisation.

He was granted the Junior Blues prize in Åmål, 2003 and won prizes in the “Musik Direkt” competition for young musicians in 2003 and 2004. Filip won the Danish Harmonica Championships in Odense 2004 and the next year he won two first prizes; Jazz and Folk/Blues/Rock/Country at the prestigious World Harmonica Championships in Trossingen, Germany 2005.

He has been playing around, mainly in Sweden since 2003, but also played in Norway, Estonia, Belgium, Croatia with different groups.