Sophie Dunér is a highly versatile singer, composer & improviser from Sweden. With her roots in jazz, she is influenced by avant garde and contemporary classical writing. Blending the romantic and the spiritually elevated with a dissonant, bold and satirical edge, she plays with tense colours resolving into romantic harmony. She likes contrast and dynamics. Sophie draws heavily on a variety of composers such as Kurt Weill, Thelonious Monk, Charles Mingus, Hans Werner Henze, Dizzy Gillespie & Igor Stravinsky. 

Sharing her time between Europe and NYC, she recently sang her own take on ‘Leo’ by composer Karlheinz Stockhausen at Carnegie Hall. This, as a result of her award winning audition last year. Selected for the second round, Sophie returns to CH in November 2024 with a new repertoire. For upcoming release in 2024 is also her new CD ‘Modern Mingus’ together with Bertram Lehman on percussion & electronics, based on the music by Charles Mingus.

At the recommendation of KH Stockhausen, Sophie studied vocal interpretation at the Stockhausen summer Courses in Kuerten (DE) for two years, supported by a grant from The Swedish Arts Council. She also studied at Berklee College of Music in Boston, earning a degree in performance, specializing in jazz improvisation with Hal Crook, George Garzone & Ed Tomassi for 4 years.

Appearances include concerts at venues such as NYC’s legendary CBGB´s, Small’s, Symphony Space, Birdland, Players Theatre,The Bop Shop, Cornelia St Cafe, ShapeShifter Lab, The 13th & 14th Charles Mingus Virtual Festival, AddAmovie Film Festival, The 11th Annual CompCord Festival, Boston’s The LilyPad, Sculler’s (MA) PARMA Music Festival (NH), Composer residency with Present Music for In The Avant Garden of Love / Jan Serr Studios (WI) Buenos Aires Festival de Música Contemporánea La Plata. European appearances include Festival O/Modernt, Stockholm New Music Festival, Stockholm Jazz Festival, Gothenburg Symphony Hall (SE), Concertgebouw, November Music Festival, Tivoli Vredenburg (NL), Jazz en La Costa, Getxo Jazz Festival, Circulo de Bellas Artes (ES) Moods Jazz Club (CH), Pizza Express (UK), Sowieso Neukoln (DE) Baltic Jazz Festival (SF) Sapporo Snow Festival (JP) etc.

CD’s include ‘Strictly Business’ (solo), ‘The City of My Soul’ (with The Callino string Quartet / produced by legendary producer Michael Haas, released onPARMA), ‘The City of Dizzy’ (with Jeremy Harman / electric cello),‘Songs Eclectic’ (with Gene Pritsker / guitar & programming),‘The Rain in Spain’ (with Rory Stuart, Matt Penmann & Kahlil Kwame Bell)/CIMP & ‘Standards’ (with the ex Cecil Taylor bassist Dominic Duval Sr / CIMP) for upcoming release TBA. ‘Modern Mingus’ (together with Bertram Lehman on percussion & electronics) is also for upcoming release during spring 2024.

Other musician & group collaborations include Present Music, Composers Concordance, Donny McCaslin, Tommy Campbell, Sébastien Dubé, Guy Livingston, Chris Au, Guillermo Klein, Eleonor Sandresky, Dick Griffin, Valery Ponomarev, Hugo Ticciati, Mark Turner, Aaron Goldberg, José Luís Greco, Daniel Schnyder, Henk Alkema, Paul Clarvis etc. During 2021, she premiered Jacob TV’s The Freedom Songs at Concertgebouw in Amsterdam.

The Swedish Arts Council has awarded Sophie grants on 4 occasions. In 2023, she received  $ 5000 composer scholarship from STIM, The Swedish Performing Rights  Society.

TV & Radio appearances include NPR Wisconsin, WJFF Radio Catskill, Arts Avenue (WISN), WMSE’s Dr. Sushi’s Free Jazz BBQ , BOLD TV, Talk Music Talk with Boice (NYC), Radio Guy Live (NL), TV4, SR (SE), Como Lo Oyes (RNE) Beneath  the Underground with John Pietaro/XX-Centric Behaviour with Laurie Towers/WFMU (NYC) etc.

In November 2023, Sophie had a composer feature in  Clarice Assad’s ‘TAPESTRY’ / The Mosaic Project, premiered at the ‘Mainly Mozart Festival’ in San Diego, USA.