All about Jazz Italia, Vincenzo Roggero:

( English translation by Carlo Serafini )

"It looks like any respectable music production, lately, can't do without strings, either a full string orchestra or a string quartet but very rarely they sound synergic with the other music components.

This is not that case of The City of My Dreams by Sophie Duner, a multifaceted Swedish singer already known for her collaborations with Gilad Atzmon, Rory Stuart, Fernando Tarres but also for her classical and avant-garde performances.

It is not anything astonishing, actually, but the string quartet of this recording gives this fascinating singer an adequate rhythmic and harmonic support.

Duner may not be comparable to such performers like Cathy Berberian but she resembles the Italian Cristina Zavalloni: both have a passion for experimentation, for an unconventional approach (to music) and the same extraordinary vocal technique used in an expressive way.

The City of My Dreams includes 17 little songs with lyrics, where Duner shows her skills as witty writer, self-confident composer and sophisticated arranger. Her flexible voice is well suited either to sing Brechtian songs or Hollywood musicals and able to get nordic nocturnal moods, agile vocalise and Hendrix-inspired rhythms. Always with great confidence and extreme dexterity moving from very high registers to almost guttural sounds, keeping good care of swing and melody. "