Hi there, and welcome!

Perhaps we met at Jazzahead in Bremen — it was lovely to see you there and to connect again. Or maybe you heard one of my concerts and wanted to learn more about the music and Edith - you are all very much welcome!

I’m Anna Kruse, a Swedish-Danish singer based in Copenhagen. For more than twenty years, I’ve been writing music inspired by the beautiful poetry of Edith Södergran. Her words feel as soulful and relevant today as ever, and it has become my mission to bring them to more ears and hearts around the world.

NB ! There are more VIDEOS under each recording

My songs live somewhere between jazz and folk, with room for both reflection, joy and spontaneity. Jeppe Holst is playing the guitar - none of them less then 7 strings, steel and banjo. Nicholas Kingo is my mand on keys and saw...(!)

The music has been performed by my regular band, as well as by string quartets, choirs, symphony orchestras, and Bigbands across Northern Europe. I love working across artistic fields, especially collaborating with actors — including Stina Ekblad (S) on a regular basis, as well as Bodil Jørgensen(DK), Ellen Hillingsø(DK), and Sofie Gråbøl(DK).

I hope this platform can bring me a little closer to you — the people who listen to the music and perhaps you a person who wanna book a concert?

Edith Trio Foto: Julie Montauk

Under each recording, you’ll find additional videos and live performances.

Here you can read more about Edith Södergran:
https://litteratursiden.dk/forfattere/edith-sodergran

Can’t wait to share it all with you and to hear from you again!

Anna

LINERNOTES fra IVAN ROD from lates recording RINGEN

From the moment Anna Kruse first read poems by the Finland-Swedish poet Edith Södergran (1892–1923), she had to surrender to her simple style and listen to what lay behind and between the words. There, the music flowed – and the poems flowed with it. For Anna Kruse, it was as if, through Edith Södergran, her own soul was putting words to the indescribable. And the poems themselves seemed musical.

What Anna Kruse could not foresee at the time was that Edith Södergran’s poems would take such a deep hold of her that she would never be able to let them go. Anna Kruse released her debut album Lyckokatt in 2009, followed by Champagnefötter in 2013, Himlens Rand in 2017, and Barndomsträd in 2021. In between, she also released singles and EPs – but all of them set Edith Södergran’s poems to music, just as this present fifth album does.

The fact is that Anna Kruse has continually found – and still finds – new, relevant depths, facets, and colours in the relatively few poems Edith Södergran managed to write before dying of tuberculosis in 1923 at the age of only 31. In her lifetime, Edith Södergran published only four collections of poetry. Yet, as little as she wrote, she wrote it with great force – even though she was mocked in her own time. Her at once vulnerable and profound poems have bridged history’s merciless distance. That is why Edith Södergran today stands as one of Finland’s / Sweden’s greatest poets to date – and why Anna Kruse has never been able to let go of her vivid, vital, and yearning verses.

Anna Kruse has even managed to give the poems renewed depth and character. Through her compositions, arrangements, her own band, and her own voice – often with the recitative interjections of Swedish/Finnish actress Stina Ekblad – she has sung the soul out of Edith Södergran’s compelling poetry.

On this present album, most of the poems come from Vaxdukshäftet – a posthumously published collection of early seasonal poems in Swedish and  translated from German and Russian. Edith Södergran was born in Saint Petersburg, where her parents worked, and she died – and is still buried – in the border town of Raivola, which today is part of Russia. She was only 15–16 years old when she wrote these poems, but already showed the maturity to understand that human beings are one with nature – something many in her time perceived as romantic, but which most people today recognise as a profound truth.

The poems are set to music by Anna Kruse’s familiar trio, consisting of pianist Nicholas Kingo and guitarist Jeppe Holst. Guest musicians include, among others, Fredrik Lundin, Veronika Krøll Voetmann, Gustaf Ljunggren, and Gunnar Halle.

Ivan Rod, Copenhagen, June 2025