Ida Gillner Interview
Below is the transcript of my interview with Ida Gillner; the podcast, video and show notes are linked as well. Ida Gillner is very special musician based in Sweden, and in this episode you’ll hear the powerful story of her personal journey, embracing different cultures, and also the comforting power of music. Ida is a multi-instrumentalist and composer; her main instruments are soprano saxophone, piano and voice. In the first part of this episode we focus on her project Shtolstse lider, her songs set to the poetry of some of Yiddish’s greatest women writers. You’ll hear about Ida’s childhood on the island of Asperö, forging her own path in different world music traditions, and the Finnish tango group Anna Heikkinen and Längtans Kapell. We also talked about her solo album “Anna” dedicated to her sister, and how the process of writing and recording this healing music comforted her through the shock of her family’s loss. Ida’s path in music reveals a powerful story of embracing different cultures through music, and the comforting power of music.
Ida Gillner:
Women writers, Yiddish women writers, and we started to read and like, wow, this is something special. It really felt like holding a hidden treasure with so much interesting and beautiful poetry, but also when you start to read about their lives and everything. So from that point, it developed to a bigger and huge project, including not only Rachel Korn.
Leah Roseman:
Hi, I’m Leah Roseman, and this is my podcast, Conversations with Musicians, which I hope inspires you through the personal stories of a diversity of musicians, with in-depth conversations and great music, that reveal the depth and breadth to a life in music. Ida Gillner is very special musician based in Sweden, and in this episode you’ll hear the powerful story of her personal journey, embracing different cultures, and also the comforting power of music. Ida is a multi-instrumentalist and composer; her main instruments are soprano saxophone, piano and voice. In the first part of this episode we focus on her project Shtolstse lider, her songs set to the poetry of some of Yiddish’s greatest women writers. You’ll hear about Ida’s childhood on the island of Asperö, forging her own path in different world music traditions, and the Finnish tango group Anna Heikkinen and Längtans Kapel. We also talked about her solo album “Anna” dedicated to her sister, and how the process of writing and recording this healing music comforted her through the shock of her family’s loss. I have included detailed timestamps for all the topics covered and for the music, and you’ll find links to Ida and her musical projects in the description of this podcast. It’s a joy to bring these inspiring episodes to you every week since 2021, and I do all the many jobs of research, production and publicity. You can support this independent podcast in a couple of ways; please take a look at the various links in the show notes.
Hi Ida, thanks so much for joining me here today.
Ida Gillner:
Hi, I'm glad to be here.
Leah Roseman:
You're the first Swedish musician I've interviewed for this series.
Ida Gillner:
How exciting!
And I have visited your city and I want to make sure I pronounce it right. Do you say Gut-e-berg? How do you say it?
Almost? "Jatabory"
Leah Roseman:
Oh, not at all.
Ida Gillner:
Yeah, that's the Swedish way of saying it. Yeah,
Leah Roseman:
Okay. It's written, in English, it looks like Gothenberg, and I find this studying different languages. Of course, we use the same alphabet, many of us in many different ways, so it's just, okay.
Ida Gillner:
Okay. So you've been here when?
Leah Roseman:
In 2019 with my orchestra, the National Arts Center Orchestra.
Ida Gillner:
Oh, really?
Leah Roseman:
We played a concert and I remember walking around and really enjoying your beautiful city.
Ida Gillner:
Do you remember where you played?
Leah Roseman:
It would've been the big concert hall.
Ida Gillner:
Oh yeah.
Leah Roseman:
Do you have -
Ida Gillner:
Nice (Swedish)
Leah Roseman:
There's so many interesting projects to talk about. I thought we could start with Stoltse lider, and this has taken a couple different forms and maybe you want to talk about your most recent collaboration.
Ida Gillner:
The project as it is now, it has taken different turns, but since two years ago, and I play with a violinist called Livet Nord, and I changed from beginning to play the soprano sax in the project, and now I'm sitting by the piano and doing the lead vocals and have Livet with me to play violin. You can say. so "Shtoltse lider" means obviously proud poems or proud songs in Yiddish. And we are focusing on several women writers from the middle of the World Wars. So in the beginning of the 20th century. Yeah, I'm composing music to their poems and we do it in different forms, like more proper concerts where we play the music. And I also talk a lot and tell us about their life stories and put the poems and songs in a context basically for the audience. And we also have more scenic performance like music theater performance, where we also do some actions on stage. And basically it is the same music and we tell the stories, but in another context you can say.
Leah Roseman:
Do you find the audits reacts differently
Ida Gillner:
To the two different versions? It is quite hard to tell because we premiered the theater performance in May this year, so we haven't had the chance to play it very much yet. But I can say during the concerts it's more like a dialogue with the audience. I invite also them to respond in another way to what I'm telling or invite them to sing along in different things. Actually, I do that in the performance too, but it's more relaxed way of connecting to the audience also and invite them to the journey.
Leah Roseman:
So Ida, I understand that you present these songs often in both Yiddish and Swedish, but if you were on tour, you might do Yiddish and let's say English or different language.
Ida Gillner:
Yeah, we sing it most in Yiddish. I guess the song you heard the single we released this spring, it's both in Swedish and Yiddish. So what we're doing, if I sing the whole song or poem in Yiddish, we mostly maybe read it in Swedish before or so, but we were recording a concert for Klez Canada, then we were reading it in English and obviously also talking in English in between the performance I did with other duo, the first duo concert we played in Denmark at a Jewish festival there. And then we actually translated the whole performance to English, but still we're singing in Yiddish. So yeah,
Leah Roseman:
I was hoping we could include a clip of Mayn Heym
Ida Gillner:
Yeah
Leah Roseman:
For people to hear.
Ida Gillner:
Yeah, nice.
Leah Roseman:
Can we use the video for people watching the video or just the audio?
Ida Gillner:
What you prefer.
Leah Roseman:
Okay,
Ida Gillner:
Yeah,
Leah Roseman:
Yeah. And I will link in the show notes that video. So people listening to the podcast, which is most listeners can just click on that, if they want to see the video. So could you speak to the poem Mayn Heym?
Ida Gillner:
Yeah. So, Mayn Heym, Mit hem in Swedish is the first single release of this new version of the duo Shtoltse lider, where it's a poem by Anna Margolin, and I sing it in both Yiddish and Swedish. I have this beautiful, yeah here. So we have collaborated a lot with Swedish Translator and a researcher called Beila Engelhardt Titelman. So this topic focusing on women, Yiddish women writing from this certain period of time is, at least in Sweden, it's very, very narrow and small topic. But at the same time, we started with this, we got connected with Beila, who recently also started to focusing on women Yiddish writers from the same period, which was amazing because she has given us so much knowledge about the writers and the context and the period of time when they were appearing. And she worked on this book that This is the Night, it's a poem from Anna Margolin where she has translated, so they in Yiddish here and Swedish here, poems by Anna Margolin.
And I found this poem my name very early and felt so strong for it. It has really sad and dark tone in it. She's, Margolin is portraying or talking about this child, which is also very, it is a repeating theme in many of her poems. The child watching at the world, like the gray world, watching people just going as in the time. And I first composed it, made the melody to the Yiddish lyrics. And then I was curious because I really liked her Swedish translation and I basically tried to just sing it with the same melody in Swedish. And yeah, basically it worked. I had to adjust some things and I thought it was really nice way to combine these. And then with Livet's violin to it, and the single is eight minutes, so it's not a really radio friendly single, which wasn't our aim, but it's like a story, like a musical story, which a lot with a long musical and instrumental ending that we're trying try to capture the feelings in the poem. Yeah,
Leah Roseman:
Beautiful. Well, we'll be including part of that and people, it'll be linked directly. People can hear the whole thing.
You’re about to hear Ida Gillner and Livet Nord performing the first part of Mayn heym with poetry by Anna Margolin; the full video produced by Klez Canada is linked directly in the show notes, and this will also be on their upcoming album next year. (Music)
. Are you planning an album later this year?
Ida Gillner:
Not later this year. We won't be able to finish it, but we have some booked studio time in January, so hopefully we'll get released a whole album next year. Actually next year it's in Sweden. Yiddish is celebrating 250 years in Sweden. So there's different things going on concerning regarding Yiddish in different ways. So we will try to release the album also as a part of this celebration or anniversary.
Leah Roseman:
And can you speak about Anna Margolin a little bit, that poet?
Ida Gillner:
She was born in Brest, which is, what's the word in English? White Russia?
Leah Roseman:
Belarus
Ida Gillner:
Belarus, yeah. In 1887, I think she died in 1952 in New York. She's one of the poems that I felt strongest for including her. Once you get to know her private life and life story, she was early like a traveler. She moved a lot both with her family but also afterwards and learned a lot of languages. She had this really strong fire within herself from an early age. She was convinced that she really had something to give the world, and she was convinced this was her goal with life, but also all the time balancing the expectations of being a woman and being a parent and a good wife. And I think those two in that time, a big contradiction was really taking her hard on her mental health and state of mind.
So she was one, she went to New York and started to work on a newspaper and was surrounded by people like her. But then she got back to Europe and she became a wife, got a husband and got a little child. They moved to Palestine and she was really trying to be that wife. But then when the child was just a couple of months, she decided to leave. She actually wanted to take the child with her, but her husband didn't let her. So she decided to leave them both and go back to New York to write, which must have been a really hard decision of course. And also when you read her poems, you read about this child coming, I mean it not necessarily always her child, but yeah, you read between the lines, but this hard feelings.
And she took a job at a newspaper and got this women column writing about women stuff, which she hated. She felt she was degradated as a human being, having to write about these things. And then in 1929 she released her first and also only poem, book of poems Lider, which got different. There's also a scene we have in our performance, like some intellectual men sitting on this cafe and having the leader, the book in their hand. And who is Anna Margolin? We haven't heard about her before. "Es darf zeyn a man", a man, it has to be a man, man, because a woman can't write like this. So they thought it was really good, but it was too good.
So it must have been a man because women can't write like this. But Anna Margolin herself, she had so high expectations of this release, and finally I give the world this. So she was devastated when she didn't get that was acclaimed as much as she thought she would be or thought she deserved. So the last eight years of her life, she didn't go outside basically and locked herself inside, kept writing and kept writing letters with different intellectuals from all over the world, but said to her lover before she died, that when I die I wanted to burn everything that's left from me, which she did. So it's such her life story and I can really relate to this feeling of having such a strong power and fire inside, and also as a woman to balance between the life of a mother or parent, but at that time, a hundred years ago, I mean even if there's a lot of things to still work on when it comes to all these stuffs, it was another time and she must have been so strong to take these actions and decisions, but it must also have taken so much on her.
Yeah, she is really fascinating. And her poetry also feels so if you didn't know, you couldn't tell it. They were written a hundred years ago because, so I think at least, so it's quite an easy language, really straight on and it's a lot to relate to, I think. Yeah, a little bit about Margolin, have you read her or
Leah Roseman:
I've read a few poems. I have a couple of anthologies and it's all kind of mixed up in my head. And I did not know the story about her life, so I had not researched her. But there's a few similar writers who are strong feminists and some of the subject matter is maybe surprising to people when you're reading very not what people would expect.
Ida Gillner:
Yeah, sure. Yeah, there are many of them, which are so interesting.
Leah Roseman:
Now, Livet is playing not a regular violin in this, but an unusual violin, quinton, a Baroque instrument.
Ida Gillner:
Yeah, she does. Which gives a wider range of the music elements and the tones so she can go quite deep. And also the vivid, light sounds of the violin. And she's also using some electronical elements sometimes like looping and an octave pedal or so
Leah Roseman:
Now you had to start at this project quite a long time ago with another singer, Louise, is it Vase? How does she say her name?
Ida Gillner:
Yeah.
Leah Roseman:
And you guys do have an album out of these songs?
Ida Gillner:
Yes. So it was with the duo Ida and Louise, and we released this album in 2019, and she's from Denmark and lives in Denmark. And during the pandemic and things happening in lives, she kind of left the freelance work. So I had a period where I did this solo, and then a few years ago Livet came along and the album turned into a band name. So we also include this music from that album. And I've also composed some new material.
Leah Roseman:
You've set songs to Kadya Molodowsky's work and also Celia Dropkin. Do you want to speak to any of these other women at all?
Ida Gillner:
Yeah, we can speak a little bit about Celia Dropkin maybe because she's also very, I don't know as much about her as I do about Margolin, but one thing that's very interesting and fascinating with her I think is she was, at least of the poets we've worked with, she was one of them who had, I think she had five children and lived with the same man, husband and really normative family life kind of. But she was one of the poets all writing, pushing the boundaries the most when it comes to sexual topics or hidden desires and exploring these sides. And this is really interesting, I think. Yeah, knowing she was living this a conventional more life makes you wonder if the things she's describing in her poems, was it a parallel life she was living outside the family life or is it her fantasies or at least, I don't know, maybe one does, and one song I really poem, I really like, "Ickh hob dikh nokh nit gezen" when she describes how she wants to, she said, I haven't yet seen you asleep. I would like to see how you sleep when your eyes is closed, when you lose the power of me and the power of yourself, I would like to see you with your eyes shot and with no breath, I would like to see you dead. And it's so powerful and you can read different things between those lines.
Leah Roseman:
And you've written music to that poem, haven't you?
Ida Gillner:
Yeah, yeah. So yeah, we can include that if you like maybe, or
Leah Roseman:
thank you
Ida Gillner:
or another.
Leah Roseman:
Well, we talked about a little bit your first project with Louise. I was wondering if you wanted to include any clip or complete track from that album, or if you want to speak to any of the poems that you've set to music specifically.
Ida Gillner:
Yeah, we can include one of those because also, yes, it's a play saxophone on these recordings and not in the new leader, so it's another sound could be good.
Leah Roseman:
“You’re about to hear Ickh hob dikh nokh nit gezen from the Shtoltse Lider album with vocalist Louise Vase, poem by Celia Dropkin and Ida Gillner on saxophone. (music)
Now I understand in 1945 thousands of Holocaust survivors were brought to Sweden, and one of them was Rachel Korn, the poet who spent two years there.
Ida Gillner:
Right. And she came, yeah, I think she came in 46. She was invited by the PEN Institution or PEN Organization, how do you say? So she stayed here two years before she moved to Canada.
And basically that's entrance to this whole project because we've been working a lot with the Yiddish community in Gothenburg. And in 2016, they were going to have a seminar about Korn and her also because her connections to Sweden. And so they asked us to compose music to one or maybe two poems to her to include in this seminar. And then we got this big bunch of a book of anthology with several women writers, Yiddish women writers, and we started to read and wow, this is something special. It really felt like holding a hidden treasure with so much interesting and beautiful poetry, but also when you start to read about their lives and everything. So from that point, it developed to a bigger and huge project, including not only then,
Leah Roseman:
I've studied Yiddish for a few years and when I was on this same tour when I was in Stockholm, we went to that beautiful library they have there, this beautiful round building, and I remember they had a Yiddish section because it's a protected language in Sweden, and it was just very emotional to see these old Yiddish books there in the public library.
Ida Gillner:
Yeah. So Yiddish is one of five officially minority languages in Sweden that is protected or that the government and different, basically the government has a responsibility to make sure the languages and the cultures from these five different minorities are staying alive and taking care of the old material, but also producing new material in different ways.
Leah Roseman:
Do you know what the other four languages are?
Ida Gillner:
Yeah, it's Finnish, I say right in English, Meänkieli, which is a north of Sweden. And, Samic.
Leah Roseman:
The Sami people?
Ida Gillner:
Yeah, Sami people. So then we have and Romani too.
Leah Roseman:
Okay, that makes sense. Yeah,
Ida Gillner:
Yeah.
Leah Roseman:
So do you hear Yiddish at all growing up or was this just as an adult?
Ida Gillner:
No, no, not in my family or so, but at first came across her Yiddish when I think I was maybe 10 or 11 or something through some music I heard. And before that, when I started to play saxophone, my very first teacher teached me a traditional Klezmer tune. I can't remember now which one it was,
But I think I was nine years at that time when I heard it. And with some certain styles for music, it just gets to your heart, strikes you. And with this song it was like this. And my parents caught up this new interest of mine and brought me to concerts and bought CDs. And so then I heard Yiddish and I was really confused the first time I heard Yiddish because I felt I understood so much, but I shouldn't because I hadn't heard language before. But then I got the explanation after the consisting of so much German in it and my grandma, she was from Germany and basically talked German to us and we spoke Swedish to her. So I felt, felt really strong connection to the language and together with the music, like the Yiddish folk songs, it was really strong experience for me that got stuck with me.
Leah Roseman:
I'm just curious. So you don't have a Jewish background yourself?
Ida Gillner:
No, no, not at all.
It came to me and became quite early, a really big fascination and also a passion. And also thanks to my parents that took care of this, they saw it made something with me. So also 2009 we went to the Jewish Culture Festival in Kraków for the first time. I've been there some years after that too, but which was also a really life, life-changing experience for me. I brought my saxophone and surrounded by the atmosphere and the city and all this music, and I was young and really knocked backstage and joined jam sessions and got to know so many wonderful people that also like, oh, you should go to Klez Canada, you should do this and this, which led to different paths in my musical and personal life.
Leah Roseman:
Now this area that you're from, the Södra Archipelago?
Ida Gillner:
Yeah,
Leah Roseman:
I looked it up. It looks so beautiful and unusual and it was close to tourists till the 1990s. I think tourists were not allowed to visit, maybe for security reasons or something.
Ida Gillner:
Well, you've really done your research. Yeah. How do you say Archipelago?
Leah Roseman:
Yes.
Ida Gillner:
Yeah, with several islands. And I'm from one of the smallest called Asperö, which it's 400 people around the year living there. On another island in the archipelago, there was a military zone or something before, so it was, yeah, obviously I didn't know this when I grew up, but I really remember, yeah, I think I was around 10 or something. You could see signs on the ferries and in the city telling welcome in all different languages, telling now everyone is welcome out there. But it was something I didn't, as a child you didn't realize or didn't know why it was like that.
Leah Roseman:
I'm curious, what effect do you think it had on you to grow up in a relatively remote and small place As a creative person?
Ida Gillner:
Since I was a creative person and started to play different instruments very early and joined orchestras and different musical activities, and obviously there wasn't space for that on this little island. So very early I had to go into the mainland, which also made me - On Asperö, there's this school from the first three years, you can go in school there and then you go to the bigger island until the ninth grade or something. But after these three years, I started school in the mainland because I had so many activities in the mainland and also my grandma and Oma was living in the mainland. So I spent a lot of time at her place between my school and my activities and also got connections in the mainland very early, which I think had a big impact on maybe the question you're asking because you can see it's also interesting, these different islands have really different characters. One of the islands is really strong Christian, like religious island, and you can see that they still have their own accent on this little island. And you can tell that people, not all, of course. But yeah, the world is not so big, I can say. And my island Asperö and also Brännö are the closest to the mainland, and I think you can tell those nuances of having a little bit more connections to the mainland, I can say, and not being as isolated.
Leah Roseman:
Okay, interesting.
Ida Gillner:
Yeah.
Leah Roseman:
And you have come from a musical family?
Ida Gillner:
Yeah, my mom was freelancing musician. My dad didn't play or is not playing anything, but it was really, you need the audience too and the people who encourage you to and to listen to it. So he was one of those, yes, I guess very early I saw that was possible to work as a musician. And my mom also very early invited me to join her on stage during her concerts. And so I was kind of naturally growing into that and didn't really think had other thoughts of what to do or when I was getting old. So it was a path from early ages.
Leah Roseman:
So did you grow up playing traditional Swedish folk music as well as classical and Klezmer and others by ear more?
Ida Gillner:
Yeah, so my first instrument was piano. I started to play when I was six, and that was more of a classical repertoire and playing from sheets. And then when I was nine, I started with saxophone, which was more oral based music, very big range of, we played blues and some classic tunes and also some Swedish or Nordic folk music. And then when I was 15, very early I started to, I didn't call it compose then, but I come up with my own music and improvising tunes and I said to my piano teacher, I want to learn more improvising and more chords. And then she said, because I reached quite an advanced level of the classical music, and she said, oh, I can't teach you this, you have to find another teacher. And then it ran out in the sand, so I didn't find another teacher.
So piano became more like my private instrument where I composed and I didn't use it in public, so I focused more on the saxophone and also played guitar. In the beginning I played alto saxophone and also a lot of baritone from a very early age. Me and my family went to a festival in Sweden called Falun Folk Music Festival, which was one of the biggest folk music festivals in Sweden with artists from all over the world, but also a lot of Swedish folk music. And that was the first time I saw the soprano sax in that context. And I fell in love. And from the day I got my soprano sax basically haven't played another the saxophones because it fit it all. So got it in folk music and also combining together with the fiddles and clarinets range wise and also sound. But when I was in the Gymnasium in Sweden, when you're from 15 to 16, I went to music school and it was classical or jazz music, but I didn't feel home in any of them.
So I asked my school if I could bring a teacher from outside, a professional musician that I really looked up to playing soprano sax in folk music styles. And they allowed me to do that. And so we focused a lot of Swedish and Norwegian folk music in parallel. I had this interest in Yiddish music or Klezmer, but didn't feel, also when I later on started at music university on a program called the World Music Program, it was really hard to find teachers and also fellow students and friends to play this music with because it's not so big in Sweden. So that's when I started to apply for different applications to go abroad and to start with other musicians and to visit festivals, to join workshops. And so to answer your question, from a piano background, it was more classical and later on in improvised and the saxophone from a very early age, it was different folk music styles.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah. I want to ask you about some of these early experiences abroad, but before that, I'd love people to hear some of your beautiful saxophone playing. So I wanted to switch to your project with Anna Heikkinen and the Finnish Tango tradition. There's one of, maybe you could ask her on that album. There's Apeltango, there's a beautiful saxophone solo. Maybe we could include a clip of that, and of course everything will be linked back to that project?
Ida Gillner:
Yeah, sure.
Leah Roseman:
So do you want to speak to that band and that project?
Ida Gillner:
Yeah, so it's a quartet called Anna Heikkinen and Längtans Kapel and which in English is the Longing Kapelya. So we began to play 2017 and on the singer Anna's initiative. During the second World War, and right after, there was a lot of Finnish children that was sent to Sweden alone, I think it was about 70,000 Finnish children and coming alone to Sweden. And Anna's father was one of them. And so it was when she turned 40 or something, she started to, she always knew she had this Finnish surname, but never didn't use so much more than that basically. And she started to investigate in her history and she never learned Finnish. And I guess this is a history that goes this very common not only for her and with that Finnish Swedish background, but also when I like in the Yiddish environment, of course. And so her way to get closer to the culture and to the language was to start to sing in Finnish. And she asked me and the cello player, Leonor and Larisa, the accordionist to join her to investigate this. And basically none of us had basically played Finnish tango before, the accordionist had it a little bit. So it was all new to us. And so the music together with Anna's story and her searching for her roots has developed into a really heart, heart feeling project. And we are trying to approach the Finnish tango in, like keeping our personal, instrumental musical voices and doing, doing our thing from it.(music)
Leah Roseman:
Hi, just a quick break from the episode.You may be also interested in my episodes with Polina Shepherd, Marilyn Lerner, Kavisha Mazzella, Ceara Conway, Kirsten Agresta Copely, Sophie Lukacs, and Yale Strom, among so many. It’s a joy to be able to bring these meaningful conversations to you, but this project costs me quite a bit of money and lots of time; please support this series through either my merchandise store or on my Ko-fi page; you’ll find the links in the show notes. For the merch, it features a unique design by artist Steffi Kelly and you can browse clothes, phone cases, notebooks, water bottles and more. You’ll also find the links to sign up for my newsletter where you’ll get access to exclusive information about upcoming guests. Please check out my back catalogue, with weekly episodes going back to 2021. Now back to Ida Gillner!
Yeah, yeah, it's beautiful. I really enjoyed that, listening to that.
Ida Gillner:
Thank you.
Leah Roseman:
If we could go back to, you mentioned you started to travel abroad and study abroad when you were young. Are there memorable experiences you want to speak to about that?
Ida Gillner:
Yeah, as I mentioned before, this first visit to the Jewish Culture Festival in Krakow was a really important journey for me. And I was so overwhelmed of the open-minded and a welcoming feeling. How old was I? 20 or something knocking on the backstage door to this jam session with all the artists I've seen during the days like, oh, you're a musician, come on, come in. And also, I didn't know so many of them before by names, so I guess this was a good thing for me because when you meet your people, you're looking up to, you get shy or you don't know what to say. So it felt really natural and warm to be there. And also the Swedish drummer, Hampus, who plays a lot with Daniel Khan and other musicians, he was there and he kind of took me under his arms and introduced me to people on this trip. I also, I went to a workshop with Deborah Strauss and asked her afterwards, can you meet me for a private lesson during these days? Which she did, and also encouraged me to go further with this music. And yeah, Manny said You should go to Klez Canada. And two years later I did, which also was, I was there in two weeks in Canada traveling by my own and my saxophone. And yeah, I'm really overwhelmed of the open-minded environment and by all the people I met during these visits, like this blonde Swede trying to explore this culture.
And then I also, I was in Canada and the same year I graduated from the musical university here, I went to Berlin and lived there for half a year and studied with Christian David and Sanna, Marikje and just tried to absorb the concerts and music there.
Leah Roseman:
What was your experience in Berlin? I understand there's just so much going on. Was it a little overwhelming?
Ida Gillner:
Yes, it was, and it was overwhelming, but also feeling of this kind of easy feeling of a really open-minded culture, and at least in the people I met and the environments there. And it's so easy to find music. You meet one, oh, you join this jam session here and you should go on the concert and call that person, which I feel I'm not feeling the same in, I think it's not the same here in Sweden. So it was some intense and overwhelming months there, but I could have stayed longer.
Leah Roseman:
And knowing German, do you think it helped you a lot being there?
Ida Gillner:
No, not very a lot because everyone, basically, most people speak English in a way. And once I was really trying to speak German too, but once they hear you have this accent of not being native or fluent, they're turning to English and you don't get the chance to improve it. But yeah, of course, especially when it came to you should get an apartment or to do, actually my husband, he went to hospital with certain things.
Leah Roseman:
Oh no.
Ida Gillner:
But it was fine. But there really was helped with my German because they didn't speak so much English. Yeah,
Leah Roseman:
Yeah. I'm curious, when you've studied Yiddish, do you know how to read and write Yiddish?
Ida Gillner:
I started Yiddish just by listening aural, and sometimes I didn't understand really what I was singing, but when we started this project doing music of poems I or we, my duo, we felt it was really important to make it properly. We wanted it to be a good project, not some fast things, but, or I started to study Yiddish first with having my Yiddish mentor, Stefan Boes who is connected to the Yiddish community here. He was really close to us in the project and the fast way he was learning us, the basic in grammars and how you pronounce different things. And with my German background, it was a bit confusing in the beginning because it's helpful in one way, but also not helpful because, and we called him like, oh, we want to do this musical phrase of these words. Can we do that? Can we stress this certain lyrics or not? And then when we worked that for two years, I felt, now I want to learn it proper for real. So then I started to study at the Jewish congregation. So I learned, I learned the Hebrew alphabet, and I mean I, well, I can speak a little bit, but I understand more, much more than I speak. And I can read the original Hebrew alphabet if I have time, I've got time on me. And if the transliteration, it's easier, of course,
No, actually this summer I started to, I downloaded Duolingo, so I'm on my strikes, I'm doing my everyday practice.
Leah Roseman:
They have a different dialect on that platform.
Ida Gillner:
It's really even more confusing, but at least I get that because back in 2018 when I started, I learned and I was so happy when I read a review in Forwards a written language. It's like a whole new world opening up. But then I didn't continuing reading and learning and I felt, wow, it's running away. But with Duolingo now, it's really nice to just keep it active and alert. Yeah.
Leah Roseman:
Well, not everyone may realize that Yiddish is written with Hebrew script. And when I first started to learn Yiddish, I had heard it as a child in my family, but a lot of people, the kids weren't taught Yiddish. But anyway, I did hear people speaking it a little bit, and so it was familiar. And in fact, my sister said, no, you have to learn to read and write. You can't learn a language without that. And she was right. And then it's funny, now if I look at German in music, for example, and it's so similar, it's a Germanic language, although there's so many other elements to it. But I'll see a familiar word written in English script, and it's just so funny to me because I'm used to the Yiddish and now I'm studying Dutch, which is also, it's super related of course, but written so differently and pronounced differently. It's super interesting.
Ida Gillner:
Yeah.
Leah Roseman:
Well, we talked about a little bit your first project with Louise. I was wondering if you wanted to include any clip or complete track from that album, or if you want to speak to any of the poems that you've set to music specifically.
Ida Gillner:
Yeah, we can include one of those because also, yes, it's a play saxophone on these recordings and not in the new leader, so it's another sound could be good.
Leah Roseman:
Well, let's talk about your solo piano album, Anna.
Ida Gillner:
Yeah,
Leah Roseman:
I was hoping to include a little bit. You have a beautiful one, Somersang
Ida Gillner:
So as I said before, piano was my first instrument, but I never really used it in public. I used to mention the piano as my soul instrument. It's where I compose and I meditate and it's really disconnected to achievement or the performance I can say. Then in 2020, my dearest sister, she passed away very sudden and unexpected, and it was on a very special day. I just got my second child, he was four or five weeks, and I was supposed to have my first concert after he came. So my whole family and my older son and my husband and the new baby went with me to the city and the hotel, they were supposed to stay there when I was playing with this Finnish tango band saxophone.
So it was really big day and everything went well, the concert and also with the family at the hotel. And I got back, and right after I got back in the evening, I got this phone call from my father telling my sister had died a few hours before and everything got black and was falling apart, the feeling of really everything falling apart because she was one of my closest person in life and connected to the music and the album. What happened then was after the biggest shock and the funeral and everything, I felt it took me eight months before I played the saxophone again. Because when you're in this, you experience this shock and the mourning grieving process, it makes you, it's not rational at all. So one of my feelings was I really can't play the saxophone because last time I played, Anna lived was alive, and if I play something now, it's something happens. And also I was so exhausted both physically and psychologically. So just the thought of grabbing the saxophone and the effort it needs to get the sound, just I couldn't do it. So I ended up and found myself with a piano time by time every day. And we have a piano in our sleeping room. So I had my five weeks old baby close to me all the time in the sleeping room. And when he was sleeping, I went to the piano and it was very comforting for me.
I felt Anna, my sister, very close when I was by the piano and a lot of music needed to come out, so, so it was really big help in my process and I took really step by step and always close to my gut feelings. So it all ended up in an album that I recorded and released one year after she passed away. And the album includes both music that was composed during this first year after she died, and also some really old music. And this summer song that you will mention, it's one of, I think I wrote it maybe 20 years ago or something.
Leah Roseman:
Oh, okay.
Ida Gillner:
And it was like an honor song to the little island where we grew up. And I felt much for this tune in this state of mind because I was thinking of our childhood at Asperö and the island and running around on the cliffs bare feet together with her. And I rearranged it also for the album.(music)
So it was a very special process and a healing process that also opened up, I think a music side within me that for a very strange reason, reason I like one part of me feels half while my sister is not here anymore, I think about her every day. I miss her so much. But during this process, one part of me also got healed, or I felt whole music wise and expression wise because bringing in the piano to my musical and public life has really made something with me and opened up so many things and the whole palette of me, like the expressions and the feelings and inside got covered with this, I feel.
Leah Roseman:
Did Anna play piano as well?
Ida Gillner:
No, she played accordion and a little fiddle too.
Leah Roseman:
Okay.
Ida Gillner:
So one of the tunes on the album called The only one, where I sing with lyrics. There's a little bit accordion on it. It's me playing, but me playing on her accordion. Yeah,
Leah Roseman:
We can include that as well
Ida Gillner:
Yeah.
Leah Roseman:
for people to hear. Did she die? Was it an accident or
Ida Gillner:
Thrombosis in the lungs? She had a three months old baby and her husband found her when he came. So it was really unexpected, and no one can explain why this happened. So yeah, it's something we will never get to know more about.
Leah Roseman:
Oh boy.
Ida Gillner:
Yeah.
Leah Roseman:
I'd seen you write about Dear Anna in reference to the album, and I didn't know the story about your sister.
Ida Gillner:
No. So that's the story for me. When I was releasing this, I didn't have, normally when you release an album, you work for such a long time with it and you make this releasing plan and have press list and PR and everything. And this process was so totally different because it was really, really step by step. And so I got this feeling to, I want to record this maybe for myself and for my family or friends. So I recorded it and then I thought, oh no, I would like to put it on social streaming. So maybe someone else finds it or likes it. And then I could never, could have never expected the receiving of the music and the album. And I feel very humble about that. People writing to me, both people I know, but so many people I didn't know before or don't even know now. But that the music has helped them in certain ways and yeah, it's very special and very beautiful and sad at the same time.
Leah Roseman:
So in your life as both a musician and a mother, I was kind of curious your approach with your children with music and music in the family and balancing everything out.
Ida Gillner:
We are trying finding that way all the time out today. I was home with my 10 years old, was sick trying to do some computer work at the same time. I think, as I said before, my mother was a musician, so I had that with me that it's possible and I've, I've been encouraged from home. And then actually before I got my first child, he's 10 now, I was working halftime in a music school, kind of teaching children and halftime freelancing. For me, it was really hard to combine this because, I don't know, have you heard about something called El Sistema? You know? Yeah, so I worked with El Sistema.
Leah Roseman:
You went to Venezuela or in Sweden?
Ida Gillner:
In Sweden.
Leah Roseman:
Okay.
Ida Gillner:
So I started up El Sistema school in a part of Gothenburg here from start. And I thought it was the best way of combining my musical thing, but also my social interests and working with children, but for many a different reason, it was really hard to combine and the work is really good, but it was also had really no boundaries. I took a lot of energy and then I got my first child and quite soon after that I quit at this job and started to freelance full time. So I made a really little, I started to lance full-time when I basically one year after I got my first child. It's alright, and it's always like me and my husband, he's really encouraging me. And of course when I'm on tour, he needs to be there. And if I hadn't a husband who didn't want to be with his child, children, and so it would've been really difficult. But I also feel like many positive things that happened when he got the children like the cliches of being more effective while working, but also in a good way, like having boundaries like, oh no, I can't rehearse on during evenings anymore. We have to do it daytime because I need to pick up my kid at the kindergarten and can sit by the computer all evening. Which has been a really good thing because before it was all over the place. And whenever trying to balance the time of being away and taking Also, I've been doing more composing work more and more of the later years. Yes, because I love it, but also because it's a good combination with the touring life so I can be home doing composition works. And so
Leah Roseman:
Do you have any upcoming projects in the next few months that do you want to speak about?
Ida Gillner:
Yes. I'm going in studio to record a new piano album with new music. And at the moment I work a lot with a project together with an author who has, last year she released a book called I'm a Human Being. She have done in depth interviews with women in prison here in Sweden. So she asked me to compose music to this book. So we are doing a performance where she's reading from the book about these women voices from inside the prison. And I've composed music that I play underneath her reading and also in between. And this is a project I really feel strongly for because it's also, yeah, I guess it's a tendancy all over the world. Like politicians talking about tougher punishments and different things, and they're like, instead of having one person in a cell in the prison having double up and everything just, and if you get to get close to these voices from inside, you really feel it's a bad idea to cut down on these soft values. So after our performances, we sometimes have a talk leader and we invite the audience to ask questions, and that's a really interesting discussions coming up from that.
Leah Roseman:
Like a moderator.
Ida Gillner:
Yeah, yeah, moderator. Yeah. Talk leader. Yeah, moderator. Yeah. So that's one thing. And I also have a really nice project with another saxophone player and a pianist playing Swedish folk music. So I have a different legs on the Yiddish, which a big part, and Swedish and the Finnish and the piano music.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah. That's wonderful.
Ida Gillner:
Well,
Leah Roseman:
Your website will be linked in the description so people can see what you're currently up to and the links to all your albums.
Ida Gillner:
Oh, thank you.
Leah Roseman:
Great. Thanks so much for speaking with me today. It was really inspiring.
Ida Gillner:
Thank you. It was really nice to meet you and talk to you. Thanks for having me.
Leah Roseman:
I hope you enjoyed this episode. Please share this with your friends and check out episodes you may have missed at Leahroseman.com. If you could buy me a coffee to support this series, that would be wonderful. Or you can browse the collection of merch with a very cool, unique and expressive design from artist Steffi Kelly with notebooks, mugs, shirts, phone cases and more. I'm an independent podcaster and I really do need the help of my listeners. All the links are in the show notes. Have a wonderful week.
