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New York has been in my dreams as long as I can remember, but it was after coming here for a visit 8 years ago I knew it was time to turn the dream into a goal, and so I started to plan my big move. I was teaching at a Universtity in Finland.

During my first year in the city I was lucky to get a steady gig at Lime Leaf and I have been there with my trio every Thursday for almost 5 years now. It’s so great to have a place to try out new material. And I’ve met so many good musicians and friends through doing that gig.

I released my third album ‘Sing to the Sky’ last October. It’s my first release in the US. It took a while to get the music together. Coming to New York was overwhelming in many ways, but especially it made me really think about jazz and its origin in a new way. I guess I was a little intimidated being surrounded by all these great American musicians, at the same time considering the cultural aspect of jazz more than treating it as an academic field, which I feel is happening a lot these days.

So I took a step back and thought a lot about these things, talked to people, read books etc. And little by little the music came together and I had a feeling that it was already written and I was just discovering it. Kinda like that Michelangelo quote “Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it.”

I played classical piano growing up, but fell in love with the sound of saxophone. So eventually I got into jazz. I listened to everything from Spyro Gyra to Charlie Parker. My heart has always been close to music with a groove, that makes you feel good. I always had a longing for singing though. Looking back, I can see how everything I’ve done musically growing up, student big bands, wind orchestras, classical music, singing etc comes together in my composing and singing.