Viktoria Tolstoy
Letters To Herbie

Artistic talent runs in the family of Swedish singer Viktoria Tolstoy. Her great-great-grandfather was the legendary Russian national poet Leo Tolstoy. From a very young age on, Viktoria made her way through the jazz clubs of Stockholm and played with leading Swedish jazz musicians like Svante Thuresson. In 1994, at the age of 20, she recorded her first album. Two years later, with the album "För Älskad," she became an overnight pop star in her homeland. This set the stage for her collaboration with Esbjörn Svensson and e.s.t. He produced and wrote songs for "White Russian," the first Scandinavian record released by the legendary Blue Note Label. Nils "Mr. Red Horn" Landgren also produced and played with her, and in 2003, she followed him and Svensson to ACT as an exclusive artist for the label. Since then, Tolstoy has established herself as one of the leading voices in contemporary jazz. Crystal clear, dynamic, wild, and vibrant, yet simultaneously prosaic and grounded, her voice is perhaps the most brilliant of all Scandinavian singers. When Viktoria Tolstoy performs a song, she doesn't just interpret it; she shapes and molds it in a unique way.