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Sylvia Vrethammar
Another tour took Sylvia, now with her own band and different repertoire, through the former Soviet-Union where large crowds flocked to get a chance to see Sylvia's stage show. 1974 her version of the mega-hit "Y Viva España" became No.1 in the British charts and sold over 1.000.000 copies. "In Concert" was the name of Sylvia's first show on German television produced by the Hessische Rundfunk in Frankfurt. The next stage of her career had now begun with numerous appearances on German stage and television. She became so popular that the legendary band-leader and composer Bert Kaempfert ("Strangers in the night") invited her to be the guest-star on his TV show. After the show he toured with Sylvia and his orchestra for several weeks through Germany, Switzerland and most of all England, terminating at the famous Royal Albert Hall in London. The gentlemen at the United Nations were so impressed by Sylvia's popularity and charm that in 1980 they invited her to do a two-week tour through Cyprus as a musical Peace Ambassador. Concerts, galas, tours, record sessions and TV shows all over the world became a part of Sylvia's daily routine. A further talent was discovered in 1983 when she made her debut as an actress in the "China Theater" in Stockholm. In the summer of the same year Sylvia recorded the album "In Goodmansland" together with Georgie Fame ("Bonnie And Clyde") and at the same time her evergreen "Ricardo" was released in Germany. She returned to Rio de Janeiro in 1985 to record the album "Rendezvous in Rio". Here she was backed by top-class musicians such as the harmonica wizard Toots Thielemans and the Brazilian accordion magician Sivuca. The whole of Brazil became infected with the Sylvia fever and soon she was appearing on one TV show after another. Neighbouring Argentina was also included in a following tour and later that year her career hit another high: She was invited to sing in China. Sylvia was also much sought after as an MC and hosted the German TV show "Kiel International" in 1986. 1989 her German album "Frau im besten Mannesalter" was released. This was the last production by the highly successful composer, arranger and producer Heinz Gietz ("Pigalle", "Musik liegt in der Luft") who died later the same year. Sylvia took part in "A Homage to Fred Astaire" with Georgie Fame, Paul Kuhn and the WDR Big Band - a WDR-TV production in Cologne, Germany. Another live radio-production, "The European Songbook" by the Dutch station NOS and their international acclaimed "Metropol Orchestra" was broadcasted to 82 countries. Meanwhile, back in Sweden, Sylvia was voted one of the countries ten most beautiful women. So in the 1990's Sylvia began to return more and more to her first love - the classic big-band sound, singing top-class arrangements with almost every known big-band on the European Continent, enabling her to take her swinging repertoire also to the more classical venue - such as the "Philharmonie" in Cologne, the "Konserthus" in Stockholm, the "Franz Liszt Academy" in Budapest or the "Classics of Swing" open air festival staged between the two domes of Berlin. In 1990 Sylvia made Germany her second residential adress and moved into a house in the countryside between Cologne and Bonn. Her German CD "Ladylike" was released in 1991 and the Dutch radio-station NOS produced a live-show with Sylvia together with their reknown "Metropol-Orchestra", called "The European Songboook". This show was broadcasted into 82 different countries worldwide. Besides a lot of concerts with her swing-repertoire, accompanied by numerous European Big-Bands, Sylvia also released the CD "Something my heart might say" in 1995. Here she was only accompanied by her longtime guitar player Rune Gustafsson and she presented her favourite songs in this intimate, classic form of voice and guitar. Under the shift of the millenium Sylvia performs a lot with the young and coming Swedish piano player Jan Lundgren and his trio and the year 2002 sees her back on scene for the Grand Prix d'Eurovision de la Chanson after a 30 year absence. On her current CDs "Samstag Nacht" in Germany and "Faller för dej" in Sweden she teams up her German- respectively Swedish lyrics with a breathtaking musical bandwidth. She covers everything from modern pop-melodies to latin-american ryhthms. Her passionate love for swing and jazz phrasing does of course again reflect her interpretations to those two albums.
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