Dalarnas Tidningar 110329
By: ANNA LINDBERG
When Helen Sjöholm was young she used to sing in her father’s sheet metal workshop and dreamed of one day becoming an artist. Her life changed completely when she got the lead role of Kristina from Duvemåla, and she still cannot quite believe that the dream of becoming a great singer come true.
– I often pinch my arm.
Helen Sjöholm greets with a big smile on her face when we meet at the Diesel Workshop’s café in Sickla outside Stockholm. You can tell that she is a warm and friendly person with both feet on the ground. Her eyes sweep over the menu before she finally orders a multiculti-salad, something she has never tried before.
Helen Sjöholm has just completed a tour with her Euforia CD, on which she interprets Billy Joel songs. The idea to make such an album came by coincidence; one day she listened to She’s Always a Woman, an old favorite song that she had almost forgotten.
– I fell in love with it again and then I became curious about Billy Joel.
Since she didn´t want to do an album of cover songs, but instead find something of her own, she decided to sing the songs in her native language.
– By interpreting them in Swedish they became whole new songs.
Helen Sjöholm is small and neat, but has a great voice. She early discovered the power of it, and when she was eight years old her mother brought her to a choir.
– It was great fun, because I suddenly had a place where I could do what I had wanted to do all along.
She sang in the choir until she was 19 years old, and as a young girl she often fantasized about life as an artist.
– But I had no concrete plans to become a singer, I rather thought that I would study and get a good job.
As a teenager she used to help her dad clean up his sheet metal workshop, which was a great place to sing in.
– It was such awesome acoustics, so I was there a lot and sang. It became like a secret place for me, where I could live out my singing fantasies.
During high school she met musicians who cheered her on, and it was thanks to such meetings she finally dared to go in for her singing completely.
– You listen extra when outsiders encourage you. My parents thought it was nice that I was doing the singing, but I think as a parent you also want to create a kind of awareness in your child about what they’re getting into.
Helen Sjöholm’s own Cinderella story started after high school, when she took a couple of years off to sing. In 1992 she starred in a big amateur performance in Enskede. The music was written by Benny Andersson’s brother in law, which made the music legend came to see the play. He had his eyes of the young girl from Sundsvall.
Two years later Benny Andersson contacted her when he was writing the musical Kristina from Duvemåla and needed to record demos to hear how the melodies sounded with vocals on.
– I took a cab to his studio and was absolutely overjoyed.
When it was time for auditions for the musical, Benny Andersson called her and urged her to apply. Among thousands of applicants, in the end it was Helen Sjöholm who landed the role of Kristina.
– It was totally crazy. I immediately felt that this will change my life, whether it will a be success or not.
But of course it was a success, to say the least. Premiering in Malmö in 1995, the musical was played for four years and received standing ovations. This was Helen Sjöholm’s big break through.
– If Kristina hadn´t arrived, perhaps I hadn´t been doing music professionally.
Several years later, in the fall of 2009, the Kristina project was raised again and in the English concert version of the musical, she sang the title role at Carnegie Hall in New York to thousands of people.
– It was terribly hard to switch from Swedish to English, to learn new lyrics to what I had sung 500-600 times before. But it was insanely fun too!
Before she gets on stage to sing to a large audience, she feels a pleasurable nervousness and a huge adrenaline rush.
– It’s like jumping off a trampoline and not knowing what is beneath it.
Helen Sjöholm has never educated her voice, and she thinks that it has been to her advantage, although she sometimes wishes she was better at reading notes.
– I think I’ve developed even more because I have created my own technique instead of listening too much to others and be overly technical.
In recent years the versatile singer has also appeared on the silver screen, since directors have called her and asked if they can screen test her. Her most famous film part she has in As it is in heaven, which she thinks was really fun to shoot.
– It was a damn fun bunch of people to work with. We got into the characters rather quickly and the togetherness we felt did a lot for the movie, she says, smiling and sipping on her tea.
Helen Sjöholm thinks she is pretty bad at taking care of her voice.
– You should really talk with the stomach in this way, so that one has a good tone and do not damage your vocal cords, she says with a made up deep voice that makes me laugh.
But that´s nothing for Helen Sjöholm, she’d rather be herself and have a living voice that will chafes a bit and not always sounds clear.
She thinks she is living the life that the young, daydreaming Sundsvall girl in the echoing rooms of the sheet metal workshop once fantasized about, but in a different way than she thought.
– But you don´t just live the dream, you do a real and immersive work as well.
Facts:
GABRIELLA’S SONG / You are my man
Hiking with Tommy Körberg / GOING TO THE SPA WITH BENNY ANDERSSON
LIKE KRISTINA EMIGRATE TO KI-CHI-SAGA / Making an Aniara Journey
Harry Martinson / VILHELM MOBERG
TO HAVE MICHAEL NYQVIST AS A CHOIR MASTER / Managing Allsång på Skansen (Sing-along at Skansen)
Facts: Skilled at grinding
Full name: Marie Helen Sjöholm Granditsky.
Born: July 10 1970.
Family: Husband David and son Ruben, three years old.
Lives: In Nacka, outside Stockholm.
Do: Is a singer and an actress.
Favorite music: Listens very little to music right now, but likes Ane Brun.
Interests: Spending time with her family.
Hidden talent: Is really good at grinding, painting and renovating.
Makes her angry: Bullying and meanness.