Event info

Mikael Máni guitarist and composer will perform a collection of new and old songs from his catalog and his favorite covers. Mikael’s first solo guitar album "Guitar Poetry" was released in March 2024 as his debut for the German label ACT one of Europe’s leading jazz labels. Mikael is a guitarist with his very own signature style, one which does not lend itself to categorization within the usual spectrum of the instrument in jazz. His jazz leanings are more evident in his approach to playing than in any obvious affiliation with the genre or the canon. In fact, folk-derived techniques such as finger-picking, or echoes of the blues, Americana, and Nordic songs, and a unique, cinematic quality are more in evidence. But perhaps most importantly, whereas Ma´ni plays purely instrumentally, his music - always and unmistakably - sings. The concept of story-telling in music may have been desperately over-worked and become a cliche´, but that, quite simply, is what Ma´ni does: all the songs on "Guitar Poetry" tell stories, open up spaces and landscapes, draw pictures. And they are the reflection of a guitarist who is as unconventional as he is musically approachable, an extroverted introvert whose whole way of being is to assert the primacy of expression and emotion.

Mikael Máni Ásmundsson, guitar