Anders Widmark

From Uppsala, Sweden, where he entered the world in 1963, pianist and composer Anders Widmark launched his recording career during the early 1990s and reached his greatest commercial heights after 2000 through a string of jazz-pop collaborations with vocalists Sara Isaksson and Helen Sjöholm. He had already begun writing music for the piano by the age of seven. His first appearance on record as a composer came in 1990, when he contributed to Claes Janson’s debut album, Frestelser. The following year he issued his own debut, Sylvesters Sista Resa (1991), recorded in tandem with jazz-pop singer Rebecka Törnqvist and marking her first full-length release as well. After securing a contract with Sony Music he delivered Anders Widmark and the Soul Quartet (1992), an acid-jazz project that anticipated later trends. Several further solo efforts followed on assorted imprints—Holly Hannah (1994), Freewheelin (1995), Anders Widmark (1996), and Psalmer (1997). With the new century he began an association with Universal Music that opened with the album Carmen (2000). Teaming once more with Sara Isaksson, he released Anders Widmark Featuring Sara Isaksson (2002), which climbed to number 31 on the Swedish albums chart and stood as his strongest showing to that point. Another collaboration, Genom Varje Andetag (2003), paired him with vocalist Helen Sjöholm and reached number 11. Two solo projects, Hymn (2004) and Waiting for a Train (2006), preceded a second album with Isaksson, Pool of Happiness (2008), which entered the Top Ten and ranks among his most widely embraced recordings. Widmark died on 26 November 2024, one day after his sixty-first birthday.