Milestones

Sylvia Vrethammar - an international acclaimed artist, whose repertoire ranges from swinging Jazz over South-American rhythms all the way to the modern pop song

She was born in Uddevalla on the Swedish west coast as daughter to inspector of schools Harald and pianoteacher Britta Vrethammar and later moved with her family to the country's capital Stockholm. At the age of 16 she began her musical career with several prizes at amateur music-festivals. Nevertheless Sylvia decided to finish school first and to study which resulted in her graduation as a child psychologist.

In the year 1969 Sylvia's career in the music business started for real. Her first album "Tycker om dej" gets released and during a performance at the Stockholm club 'Gyllene Cirkeln' she is noticed by a TV-producer and immediately gets her first own personality-show on Swedish TV. TV-entertainer Lennart Hyland is watching the broadcast of this show and on the spot decides to engage Sylvia as a co-host for his enormously popular TV-show "Hylands Hörna".

One of her numerous tours around the globe leads Sylvia through the former Soviet Union and even here the people cue up in masses to get to see Sylvia's stage-show. In 1974 her English original-version of the mega-hit "Y Viva España" reaches the tops of the English charts, sells over 1 Million copies and stays for 39 consecutive weeks on the charts, leading to an entry into the "Guinness Book of Records".

Now the engagements start streaming in and Sylvia is been sent to the "International Song-Festival in Rio de Janeiro" as the representative of Sweden. In Brazil she develops her great love for Samba music and therefore puts together a tour with Brazilian Samba-group "Trio Pandeiros De Ouro" through the whole of Scandinavia. This tour with the opening-night at the "Strand-Hotel" in Stockholm becomes such a sensational success, that Sylvia gets from now on described as the "Samba-Queen" whenever there is an article about her.

"In Concert" is the name of Sylvia's first personality-show on German television. This next stage of her career begins with numerous appearances on German stage and television. She becomes so popular that the legendary band-leader and composer Bert Kaempfert ("Strangers in the night") invites her to be the guest-star on his TV show. After the show he tours with Sylvia and his orchestra for several weeks through Germany, Switzerland and most of all England, terminating the tour at the famous "Royal Albert Hall in London". It was the same venue in which opera-diva Kristina Nilsson had her last public appearance in 1897 ... and by the way Kristina was Sylvias grand-grand aunt.

Returning to Rio Sylvia starts working on her album "Rio de Janeiro Blue" as well as on the adjoining TV-movie "Rendezvous in Rio", where she is accompanied by such top-class musicians as harmonica wizard Toots Thielemans and Brazilian accordion magician Sivuca. Soon after that follow more concerts in neighbouring countries such as Argentina and Colombia and later that year her career hits another high: She is invited to perform in China and to inaugurate Sweden's first hotel in Xian.

Sylvia is also much sought after as an MC and hosts the German TV show "Kiel International" in 1986. 1989 her German album "Frau im besten Mannesalter" gets released and unfortunately becomes the last production with her by the highly successful producer Heinz Gietz ("Pigalle", "Musik liegt in der Luft") who dies later the same year. In the following Sylvia teams up with Georgie Fame, Paul Kuhn and the WDR Big-Band conducted by Jerry van Rooyen to record the TV-concert "Hommage à Fred Astaire".

Meanwhile back in Sweden, Sylvia is voted as one of the countries ten most beautiful women.

In the year of 1983 during the production of a TV-concert at the legendary "Berns" in Stockholm Sylvia works for the first time with Georgie Fame ("Bonnie & Clyde") and during the summer of this year also records the album "In Goodmansland" together with him. In the meantime here later-to-become-evergreen "Ricardo" gets his first release in Germany.

Another live radio-production with Sylvia, "The European Songbook" by the Dutch station NOS and their international acclaimed Metropol Orchestra gets broadcasted simultaniously to 82 different countries. This leads to a lot of recalls for Sylvia to sing with the Metropol Orchestra conducted by Rob Pronk. More of Sylvia's journeys lead to Cologne for a Big-Band-Concert at their "Philharmonic Concert Hall", to Budapest to perform at the "Franz Liszt Academy" or to Berlin for a big open air concert between the two Domes.

In 1990 Sylvia makes Germany her second residential adress and moves into a house in the countryside between Cologne and Bonn. The German CD "Ladylike" is released and a few years later the critically highly acclaimed CD "Something my heart might say". On this album she is only accompanied by her longtime guitar player Rune Gustafsson and she presents a couple of songs from her broad repertoire in this intimate, classic atmosphere of voice and guitar.

In 2002 she returns to perform again at the "Eurovision Song Contest " for the first time in 28 years. Both albums "Samstag Nacht" in Germany and "Faller för dej" in Sweden, although with totally different tracks, are being produced at almost the same time and Sylvia's German as well as Swedish lyrics are being teamed up with a phenomenal bandwidth of different musical styles.

Eurovison Song Contest 2002

... during a break at the recording session of "Champagne"

Besides her numerous concerts with her Swing-Repertoire, being accompanied by the finest European Big-Bands, Sylvia begins at the end of the nineties a working relationship with young Swedish jazz piano player Jan Lundgren and his trio. An unforgettable instance working with this trio turns out to be a show at the world-famous "Tropigala-Club" of the Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami, USA.

The co-operation with Jan Lundgren and his musicians is developing in the meantime so intensively and successfully that Sylvia decides to make a CD with the boys where she also for the first time will show her talents as a record producer. The recording sessions take place in the summer of 2005 in the living room of Sylvia's country house in Germany and the result is being released on CD in the spring of 2006 under the title of "Champagne".