Diana Nuñez Born and raised in San Antonio, Texas, I moved at the age of nineteen to Mexico City where I started singing professionally with the Carlos Beltran Orchestra. There I met a group of Swedish musicians, the Gimmicks, who asked me to join their group. I said yes, travelled to Sweden with them and have been a Swedish resident since then. For five years I sang and travelled around the world with this group. It was a great group with quality musicians who became like my family away from home. Especially the co-singer, Anita Strandell, whom I still work together with at times! (Our latest collaboration is the CD album "Tropical Touch", recorded in 2004 for Gazell Records). The Gimmicks recorded several albums from. In 1998 the CD collection album "The best of the Gimmicks from Acapulco to Tokyo" was released by Sonet Records. After The Gimmicks, Anita Strandell and I continued on and formed a trio call Tre Damer with Inger Öst. This group became a huge success and for five intense years we received critical acclaim for performances and shows in night clubs, concert halls, festivals and TV, often collaborating with some of Swedens best lyricists, artists and musicians. Our most fruitful collaboration and the one people still remember us for, was with Swedens most well loved artist/poet/troubador , the late Cornelis Vreeswijk. This period in my career is what made it possible for me to really penetrate the Swedish music culture and language. It was a time of musical and artistical schooling. Another learning period for me was when I started doing work as a back-up vocalist. Here I have to thank my parents for giving me music lessons, since reading music is a must for this kind of work. During these years I did back-up work for both studio recordings, television/radio shows as well as concerts. I think the highlight of this period is when I was part of the back-up vocalists in the orchestra for a TV show where Tina Turner was a guest! Unforgettable! A close second is the 8-year gig I did with one of Swedens most popular female artists, Lill Lindfors. Every autumn, spring and summer ´86 through ´94 I was part of her orchestra. A wonderful time of memorable concerts and lots of traveling all around Scandinavia and even the USA. This period is pivotal in my life. I married Lars Beijbom, who is also my greatest music companion through my life thus far. We formed the group Bright Orange with some of the best musicians around Stockholm at the time and it turned out to be the most powerful musical experience I´ve ever had. A fusion of pop, rock and jazz with all songs composed by Lars, we recorded an album called, "The Goose is Out" for Innovative Communications in 1983 and toured Germany. Bright Orange lasted until half the band started building families. Our own son, Daniel, was born in November of ´84. In January of ´86 I left Stockholm after fifteen intense years. With my husband and baby we moved to the little "metropolis" in the south of Sweden called Lund. Despite leaving the music capitol that Stockholm is, as two well established names in music, we have never regretted the move. We’ve been lucky to initiate lots of new and great music collaborations here in the part of Sweden called Skåne. After a few years where I prioritized motherhood, Anita Strandell and I revived the trio Tre Damer, but this time with singer Mia Adolphson. We did mostly parties and conference entertainment as well as an occasional TV show or small tour. But in 1995, we did a project that will stand out in my memory as a favorite. The idea of singing with a brass band emerged and our arranger, Lars Beijbom, started writing for three voices and a brass quintet! Together with Mia´s dream to sing Duke Ellingtons music, we decided to do a tribute to Duke and his music. With the "Cornova Brass", Lars on drums and Tre Damer, we toured with this concert program for three years. The project culminated with a recording of the CD album entitled "Duke, we love you madly" released in 1999, honoring Duke Ellingtons 100th birthday. We topped it all off with a concert at the Swedish Cultural Center in Paris! My voice had up to now been the tool that enabled me to work with music. But in 1998 dance and drums came into my life and it was the thing that integrated all the facets of music for me...voice, movement and rhythm. It started with a weekend workshop in Creative Dance. I had so far in my life stood behind a microphone and felt the movement and rhythm in the music, but expressed it with my voice. Creative Dance was liberating and I knew that it would always be a part of my life. I completed a leadership course in Creative Dance at the Frigörande Dans Akademin in Dalarna, Sweden. Shortly after that I was introduced to West African rhythms. I started playing the djembe and Malinke bass drums first and after a year or so I started dancing. Since then I have studied for both the accomplished Swedish drum teacher Fabian Hildebrand and the Djembe Master, Famoudou Konate from Guinea. I travelled to Senegal in 2001 and Mali in 2007 to play and dance. Together with two other women, Helen Melin and Lena Jungmark, we lead courses and workshops in West African Rhythms. The Beijbom Kroner Big Band is band that my husband, Lars Beijbom, started back in 1994 together with his danish colleague, trombone player Erling Kronor. They were asked to be part of a project called "Music Around", sponsored by cultural organizations from both sides of the Sound between the south of Sweden and Denmark. They asked me to be the vocal soloist for their program, "Latin Express", knowing my fondness for Brazilian music. Together with another soloist, the world renowned bandoneon player, Marcelo Nisinman from Argentina, we performed concerts and festivals during this period. Besides Brazilian songs I also sang original music of both Lars and Erling, as well as Argentinian Tangos, something totally new to me....something I hope to explore more of in the future. A live CD was recorded and released in 2004, "Tango for Bad People". My long time colleague, Anita Strandell, was approached by Gazell Records in Stockholm and was asked to revive the sound of The Gimmicks from back in the 70´s. She and I asked Lars Beijbom to arrange and produce the recording which documented for us more than thirty years of singing together. For this CD we chose both Brazilian, American and Swedish music, including a couple of original songs by Lars. We called this collaboration "Tropical Touch". The group Andetag started out as a combination of singing and meditating. We are four women, Inger Ohlén Reingold, Helen Melin, Lena Jungmark and myself, who get together and let our voices express whatever is in the moment. We have developed into a unit where our voices function as finely tuned instruments with improvisation as the cornerstone, although we also sing songs and psalms. Our concept can be described as voices, meditation and concert. We have since September of 2007 "performed" in various churches in the south of Sweden . It is a unique opportunity for the listener to either participate or just be in the moment with us....magical! We have recently released our first CD, "Valv". (Trans. "Archway") After many years of working together with countless musicians, singers and producers, my husband, Lars Beijbom and I started writing, arranging and recording our first joint venture, the cd Circular Songs. With Lars programming and recording all instruments and myself singing all voices, we manifested our vision to compose and record songs which move round and round as they expand. Songs where lyrics take second place to sounds, colors, orchestrations,textures etc. All with an on-going theme that can be described as lyrical/rhythmical, yin/yang, sun/moon, day/night, in/out and so on....the pulse of life. Lars Beijbom Lars is from Sweden. Early musical influenses include jazzgreats Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Art Blakey as well as pop and pop/soul legends like Jimi Hendrix and Aretha Franklin. After spending teenage years in various jazz and popbands as drummer Lars went on for further studies to the prestigious Berklee College of Music in Boston, Mass in the 70´s. Contemporaries at the school were greats to be like John Schofield, John Robinson, Steve Smith and Vinnie Coliauta. Lars´s band “Small Potatoes” had people like Mike Stern on guitar. Neil Stubenhaus on bass and Tiger Okoshi on trumpet. After graduation Lars settled in Stockholm, Sweden. One of his first gigs was a live stint/recording with bassist great Red Mitchell and piano virtuoso Dorothy Donegan. Lars arranged/composed for, as well as played with, the Swedish Radio Jazz Group (with also other guest composers like Gearge Russell, Mike Gibbs, Kenny Wheeler) Radio/television shows, recordings with various artists, his own bands Small Potatoes and White Orange (featuring a.o. american trumpet great Tim Hagans), With singer Maritza Horn Lars released his first album in 1977: Subway Baby Lars´s music could also be heard in Denmark where the Danish Radio Big Band and Symphony Orchestra in 1979 comissioned and later performed/broadcast his “Cuchulain”with singers Tre Damer and Maritza Horn. In the 80´s Lars and his wife singer Diana Nunez started the popgroup Bright Orange, released the album “No doubt, the goose is out” and toured in Europe. After the birth of their son Daniel in 1984 the family moved to Lund in the very south of Sweden. There Lars pursued work in the film/video world composing and recording music for short films, industrials, commercials but also work for television composing themes and program music for such shows as “24 Karat”, “Rena rama sanningen” as well as drama presentations like the series“Kuriren”. Around this time Lars also delved into the world of synthesizers, samplers and computers. He also got commisions from Musik i Skåne. Most importantly perhaps the work “The swinging Triangle” featuring a 16 piece chamber orchestra plus a piano trio with piano great Bobo Stensson as central soloist. At this time, from 1989 and on, Lars also took part of the jazzgroups “Fair Play“and danish trombonist Erling Kroner´s “Dark Side Orchestra “. In 1991 Lars took part in the Eurovision Song Contest with a piece performed by Diana Nunez. In the fall of ´93 Lars and Erling Kroner started the joint Swedish/Danish jazz orchestra Beijbom Kroner Big Band. Made up of 8 swedes and 9 danes the band soon got a lot of attension for the unique combination of Lars´s and Erling´s music. Tango, Funk and very bluesdrenched jazz music that had you at the edge of your seat. Between 1996 and 2004 the band released 3 albums. The first “Live in Copenhagen” won the jury´s vote in Jazz Special for album of the year in Denmark 1997. The second “Opposites attract” came in 1998. The last one “Tango for bad people”(2004) featured argentine bandoneoist Marcelo Nisinman and Diana Nunez on vocals. In 1995 Lars contributed arrangements for Benny Andersson (of ABBA) and his epic musical “Kristina from Duvemåla” and that same year saw Lars writing a whole show of Duke Ellington´s music for the brass quintet Cornova Brass and the vocal group Tre Damer. This highly succesful program went on to tour Sweden (and Germany and France in ´98) for over 5 years. The album “Duke, we love you madly” was released in 1999 on db records. In 1997 Lars struck up an artistically and musically very productive friendship with Danish singer/performer Stig Rossen. Lars has written arrangements for Stig since then. There´s been a lot of shows/recordings/tv broadcasts. (some even shown in the USA) Lars continues to write for artists in Sweden and Denmark as well as producing music in his and Diana Nunez´s studio in Lund. Some of the artists Lars has arranged for are Dionne Warwick, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Tommy Körberg, Helen Sjöholm and Cornelis Vreeswijk.