Niklas Winter - The Lighthouse (2021)

Niklas Winter (b. 1969) is a versatile guitarist and a composer but also an important actor in the international, especially Nordic, jazz collaboration. Winter started to play the guitar when he was 6-years-old and studied classical music in the Conservatory of Turku in the late 1980s but moved to Boston in the early-1990s to study in the prestigious Berklee College of Music. There he met the Danish saxophonist Emil Hess with whom he formed the Scandinavian Jazz Quartet that performed actively in Scandinavia, Europe and China. The band made three studio albums; New Deal (1994), A Night In Bilbao (1997) and Silent Knowledge (2000).

Winter’s main interest has always been writing and performing original music. His bands as a leader have been the Finnish-Danish-Swedish Winter’s Jazz Workshop (Hypnosis 1999 and Saknad 2001) and the Finnish – Swedish Niklas Winter Quartet. The latter made a reunion concert at Jazz Espa Festival in Helsinki in July 2020. Since 2004 Winter has also led his Finnish–Japanese bands. His album Beautopia was released in Japan by King Records in late 2007 and in Europe in 2008.

During the last six years Winter has collaborated with Ulf Wakenius and Jesse van Ruller playing duo concerts with these two master guitarists. Winter & Ruller did a session for YLE, the Finnish Broadcasting Company in 2015, and Winter has written music several times for YLE.

In 2020 Winter created duo works with Severi Pyysalo and with Italian Lorenzo Cominoli were done. Winter & Cominoli’s new album The Lighthouse will be released in August 2021 as a vinyl and CD. Concerts will be done the same month in Finland and Italy celebrating this new album. Winter and Pyysalo did a streaming concert for Salo Jazz in February 2021 and material from that concert is found in YouTube.

Winter has performed at most of the Finnish jazz festivals including Pori Jazz Festival and Tampere Jazz Happening, and such international festivals as London Jazz Festival, Copenhagen Jazz Festival, Yokohama Jazz Promenade, the Beijing Modern Music Festival, Orta Jazz Festival and the Nuoro Jazz Festival. He has performed in the US, Europe and in Asia several times during the last 20 years, including 21 tours in Japan. In the summer 2020 Winter performed at the ID SPB 2020 Jazz Online Festival. Winter played four original songs which have had over 350000 views on Youtube so far.

Winter has received several awards in Finland for his musicianship, such as the Young Arts Award in 2000 and the Aboa Price in 2001. Winter received the Western Culture Award from Svenska Kulturfonden in 2006.

A special thanks might be in place also for the record label of Winter, Abovoice, that has been an important addition to the publishing field of Finnish jazz. Besides the projects of Winter, Abovoice has released albums from i.a. saxophonist Sonny Heinilä and guitarist Kalle Kalima.

Winter has done workshops in Finland, Italy, Denmark, England, China and Japan and Korea. Winter is currently teaching guitar at the JAMK University of Applied Sciences.