Drawing on an unconventional career path, Korean singer Youn Sun Nah is a unique voice in contemporary Jazz. Born in Seoul in 1969, she débuted her music career as a classical singer and only started delving into the Jazz repertoire when she moved to France in her mid-twenties. The singer released her début album “Reflet” in 2001 and has since enjoyed a very successful international career, sharing her time between Europe and her native Korea.
Crossing over styles with her amazing vocal range, Youn Sun Nah electrifies audiences, effortlessly alternating between her own compositions, the Great American Songbook, European classical music, pop music, Chanson Française or traditional Korean songs.
It is the precision of her intonation and phrasing, great timing and crystal voice that enable her to turn minimalistic forms into powerful emotions, pure elegance and magic. ACT Music – “Lento” press release
With Lento (2013), her third recording with the Munich-based contemporary Jazz label Act Music, she reunites with musical partners Lars Danielsson (double bass and cello), Xavier Desandre-Navarre (percussion) and guitar maestro Ulf Wakenius with whom she regularly duets at concerts and festivals around the world. Lento also introduces French accordion and accordina player Vincent Peirani.
Once again, the vocal range of Youn Sun Nah shines on this more intimate release. Superb ballads like “Waiting” almost have a baroque quality with Lars Danielsson’s cello while the 1948 country & western classic “Ghost riders in the sky” gets a startling makeover.
A spectacular and almost operatic scat number on Lento, “Momento Magico” is a composition by Ulf Wakenius and it is also the title track of the guitarist’s latest solo release on the ACT Music label.
The unceasing quest for those magical moments in music is what drives jazz musicians to do what they do […] Those rare and extraordinary moments outside the bounds of time and space that stay with you throughout an entire musical life. Ulf Wakenius – Momento Magico press release
And a magic moment it is.
