YELENA ECKEMOFF: “Öresund Bridge” By Jazz/Prog Pianist/Composer Debuted At Avant Music News; Rosendals Garden, Recorded At ABBA Member’s Studio, Nears March 27th Release

photos by Harry Eckemoff

As prolific pianist and composer YELENA ECKEMOFF prepares to release her twenty-third album since 2010, Rosendals Garden, Avant Music News is helping spread the word with an exclusive premiere of the latest single, “Öresund Bridge.”

YELENA ECKEMOFF was born in Moscow, Russia, in the former Soviet Union. She showed early talent at the piano and began studying at an early age with her mother, Olga, a professional pianist and teacher. At seven, she attended Gnessin State Musical College, a school for musically gifted children, and furthered her education in classical piano at Moscow State Conservatory. After graduating, she began concertizing, studying jazz, composing music for several instruments, playing in a jazz-rock band, and teaching piano. After moving to the U.S. in her late-20s, she began her recording career, working across several genres such as classical, vocal, folk, Christian, and jazz. Since then, ECKEMOFF has released nearly two-dozen albums, received critical acclaim in the jazz and prog press, and forged her own unique sound as a chamber-setting composer and improvisational pianist.

YELENA ECKEMOFF is known for her richly imaginative jazz storytelling, which is illuminated on Rosendals Garden, her twenty-third album since 2010. Recorded at RMV Studio, owned by ABBA’s Benny Anderson, the album is a tribute to Sweden’s natural beauty, history, and quiet magic. The eleven-song Rosendals Garden adds to her impressive collection of compositions that integrates sophisticated jazz improvisation with a deep, personal narrative. Each composition on the album functions as a standalone short story, yet together these tunes form a sweeping suite of emotional and cultural exploration.

Rosendals Garden was recorded with some of the country’s most prominent musicians – Svante Henryson providing cello and double and electrical basses and Morgan Ågren (Karmakanic, ex-Devin Townend-live, ex-Magma-live) performing all drums and percussion – with YELENA ECKEMOFF writing all compositions and arrangements and performing all piano and keys.

Throughout this kaleidoscope of an album, YELENA ECKEMOFF remains masterfully in charge – always the consummate composer, instrumentalist, and bandleader. She continues to assert what a jazz album can be – not just a collection of ear-pleasing tunes, but a deeply felt experience transformed into pure sound. Rosendals Garden captures more than just picturesque scenery; It immerses listeners in the composer’s inner experiences, emotional impressions, and wide-eyed awe before the natural world, symbolized by the verdant sanctuary by the same name.

Rosendals Garden was recorded on August 28th and 29th, 2024 at RMV Studio in Stockholm, Sweden – owned by Benny Anderson of ABBA – tracked by engineer Linn Fijal, and was mastered by Stefano Amerio. Like all her records, the cover art for the album was painted by YELENA ECKEMOFF herself.

With the release of “Öresund Bridge,” ECKEMOFF reveals, “After my first recording session in Europe – it was the Forget-Me-Not album with Marilyn Mazur and Mats Eilertsen – my husband and I rented a car in Copenhagen to make a big loop going first from Copenhagen to Malmö, Sweden, then to Goteborg, then crossing back on a ferry to go through several Danish cities back to Copenhagen. This week-long trip started intense, because traveling for the first time across the Öresund Bridge that connects Denmark and Sweden, was quite an experience. At first, we were driving in the long tunnel, then we drove through the narrow island and finally we got onto the bridge.

“The car started a slow climb. It was drizzling and foggy with very limited visibility, but we could tell that we were getting higher and higher because the wind was picking up. At times, the gusts were so fierce that we felt that our car was drifting, so my husband had to slow down. We could see that the bases of tall towers, on the left and on the right, were covered by thick clouds. Then the clouds opened up in single moment, and we saw how high we were above the sea. Large container ships looked like toys! Tall towers zoomed above us. It was a spectacular, if unsettling view, filling you with a sense of your own smallness and yet – an utmost respect to those who engineered and erected such an incredible structure.”

Listen to YELENA ECKEMOFF’s “Öresund Bridge” first at Avant Music News RIGHT HERE.

Rosendals Garden will be released digitally and on digipak CD through ECKEMOFF’s own L&H Production on March 27th. Find preorders HERE and presaves HERE. Several prior singles, videos of the cover art being painted and of the trio discussing the record, and more are playing on YouTube HERE.

“…Rosendals Garden does more than add another entry to an already substantial discography. It reframes ECKEMOFF’s artistic identity. The album suggests a composer increasingly comfortable with restraint, willing to let atmosphere carry meaning, confident enough to allow silence equal weight with sound… in a cultural moment saturated with urgency and noise, ECKEMOFF offers something rarer, attentiveness. She invites the listener to sit, to observe, to linger. Like a Scandinavian summer evening, the music does not demand attention. It earns it.” – Paris Move

https://yelenamusic.com
https://www.instagram.com/yelenamusik
https://yelenaeckemoff.bandcamp.com
https://www.facebook.com/Yelena.Eckemoff.Music
http://youtube.com/YelenaEckemoff
https://landhproduction.com

The post YELENA ECKEMOFF: “Öresund Bridge” By Jazz/Prog Pianist/Composer Debuted At Avant Music News; Rosendals Garden, Recorded At ABBA Member’s Studio, Nears March 27th Release first appeared on Earsplit Compound.