Crazy fall 2018

This has been my busiest fall so far and lot's of exciting things have happened and are still about to happen before Christmas! :)

The past

I started out by releasing my first solo album "Let's Blame Spring" with my own jazz compositions followed by a release tour in both Finland and Sweden. (some pictures below)

The Sweden tour lasted a week and was extra awesome because it was completely new territory for me and I also got to play with- and get to know new great musicians. Good times! :)

The musicians involved in the release tour were:

Mathias Sandberg, guit (FIN)

Zacharias Holmkvist, bass (FIN)

Pontus Häggblom, dr (SWE/FIN)

Hannes Sigfridsson, dr (SWE)

Josef Karnebäck, bass (SWE)

Andreas Henningsson, bass (SWE)

Stefan Brokvist, dr (FIN)

My album was sponsored by Svenska Kulturfonden and private donors and the tour was sponsered by Svenska Kulturfonden and Svenska folkskolans vänner.

At the same time as all this I started studying "Master of Culture and Arts, Entrepreneurship in the Arts, Music, Media & Marketing" in Novia in Jakobstad lead by Richard Smith.

Very interesting I must say and lots of information to process!

I have to do some catching up in January, though, because there are only so many hours in the day after all

(I'm the curly-haired gal in the back on the left side, surrounded by all those very talented people you see in the picture :D )

The present

Now I'm in the middle of rehearsals for our new show "A Vintage Tribute To The Women Of Pop" with The Ginger Sisters. We have a new singer in the group, Matilda Ångerman, because Josefin Karlsson left us for some exciting theater work in Sweden. Carla Fri and I wish Josefin all the luck in the world! and welcome our new little sister Matilda! :)

We also have a new bass player this fall so our gipsy jazz trio now consists of:

Mathias Sandberg, guit

Tomi Kettunen, guit

Zacharias Holmkvist, bass

We will do two shows in November, 3/11 at The Doo-Bop Club in Vasa and 10/11 at Nordhuset in Helsinki.

The future

As tradition demands, Mariah Hortans/M Sandberg Duo will go our annual Christmas Jazz Tour starting 14/11 and ending 20/12. This year we'll be doing 38 concerts around Finland, covering pretty much every part of our "a thousand lakes" country. :)

Looking forward to getting in- and helping others get in the Christmas spirit!

(I've always loved Christmas!!)

At Youtube, amongst many other places, you can listen to our albums "Christmas Jazz" and "Another Jazzy Christmas".

Well that's what's going on this fall and that's it for my first blog post EVER(!),

I hope you liked it! :D

/Mariah