Barometern 150625
By: ANNA TÖRNKVIST
Helen Sjöholm has invested in width before cred. This summer she gathers a bunch of old musician buddies for a mini tour that visits Öland this weekend.
Helen Sjöholm calls back just before the rehearsals of the summer’s mini-tour entitled Music in the summer evening.
– It’s me and my old musician buddies who, on our own initiative, dive into things we’ve done before. It’s such a luxury to work with these musicians that I’ve known for 15-20 years and just go with lust, says Helen Sjöholm.
She and musicians Martin Östergren, Jojje Wadenius, Ulric Johansson and Tomas Bergquist will perform among other things music by Billy Joel, Benny Andersson, Tomas Andersson Wij and Elvis Costello.
She was 25 when she landed the role of Kristina in Kristina från Duvemåla and transformed from an unknown find to musical star.
– I could not have gotten a better start. It’s a fantastic story and a great female role. I can still pinch my arm over that I was involved in that.
Early on Helen Sjöholm felt the power in her voice. She was four years old and accompanied her grandmother to the nursing home to visit Grandma’s Dad. Sjöholm noticed how glad the old became. Felt the response, that it meant something when she sang her sad, dramatic traditional Swedish songs.
– I felt from the start that I needed to make sound and sang a lot. I had an unusually strong voice and was loud. My mother could probably find that was pretty hard but when I was 15 years old I hung out a lot in my dad’s sheet metal workshop at home in Sundsvall and cleaned there on the weekends. There I got time for myself.
In the sheet metal workshop she began to experiment and tested the vocal timbre and strength when all the workers had gone home for the day.
– The acoustics were like in a church and it became my church, says Helen Sjöholm.
When did you decide to become a musician?
– I’ve always thought that I should do other things and have the music on the side. The law of Jante made me, for example, choose the Social Science program in high school because I figured I should have a real job. But I’ve been so damn lucky. When I got the role of Kristina I thought that if this works I can’t do this half-and-half any longer. But for a long time I had such a performance anxiety and stress over not being enough. “This won’t be anything anyway” I thought for a long time. But I don’t think like that now.
Her career since the musical success has moved between the genres of musical, theater, revues and the wide breakthrough on film as the abused woman in Kay Pollack’s As it is in Heaven.
– My career has not followed a plan. I have gone with feeling and intuition, not on cred. I have found it difficult to know what I want but it has also become my school. Some thought for example that revue was wrong. But it was as fun as anything at the China Theater with Lasse Berghagen, Magnus Härenstam, Loa Falkman and Sissela Kyle. I learned a lot about timing and dared to trust my comic side.
What are you most pleased with in your career?
– Besides Kristina från Duvemåla it’s just that, that I’ve done such different things. I have been curious and dared to go with comedy and drama.
As it is in Heaven and Gabriellas sång touched many, how was it to play that?
– It was the first time I had a film role and it was big for me. Director Kay Pollack made me reach the very limits of my ability and it was incredibly instructive.
What would be a challenge for you?
– Each new job is a challenge. This autumn I first do a big tour with Peter Jöback and 40-man strong Stockholm Sinfonietta and then tour in the smaller format with Anders Widmark. It’s challenging and fun to work in this way and I think that’s what makes me keep the desire. In the future I would like to do more theater.
What do you get inspiration from?
– In those I work with, the children and life. I am an observer and think it’s extremely exciting with people. I have worked with everything from Håkan Hellström to the opera singer Bryn Terfel and it’s together with them, and based on who I am that I get inspiration. That’s how I think good art is created regardless of what genre you work in.
Which musical collaboration are you most pleased with?
– Benny Andersson has followed me for so long and this gang I’m out with now. Work friends that you can reconnect to are worth gold.
What happpens if you don’t perform You are my man at the concert in Öland?
– The audience probably requires that I do it. But I’m not sorry about it. It’s wonderful to perform with a bunch of musicians, but can be difficult to do with a solo pianist.