"Vienna is a very beautiful city, very pleasant with a lot of peace and quiet, even though it is a big city at the same time", says the singer. Rebekka Bakken enjoys the peace and quiet, if for no other reason than that it allows her to collect her spirits and recharge her batteries. Ever since the 2003 release of her first solo album "The Art of How to Fall", the charismatic and sensual singer-songwriter has been the talk of the town. Her songs are ennobled by her three-octave vocal range, which lets her shift back and forth playfully, in a relaxed and harmonious manner, between pop, folk, jazz and R&B - and all that with the success that has brought her more than sold-out concerts everywhere.

For "The Art of How To Fall", Deutscher Phonoverband gave her the coveted JazzAward, which is considered the equivalent of a Gold Record in the jazz industry. And for her following album "Is That You?"(2005), she was simply showered with praise, according to the German music magazine "Musikexpress": "Bakken opens up musical horizons ranging from the American Midwest into magically charged Scandinavian spiritual landscapes."

While Bakken's career has skyrocketed in the past three years, she worked hard for it. She started out with violin classes. But since she showed a preference for song as a child already, she taught herself piano so that she could accompany herself. The major stylistic shift finally occurred when she was a teenager. After singing Norwegian folk songs and church songs up to that point, she started gaining experience with funk, soul and rock with local bands.

From then on, her path was all marked out for her. And nothing was able to distract her from it, not even when she started out to study philosophy and economics. So, in 1994, she dared the jump "to the other side of the big pond". "I went to New York to play music there", says Bakken retrospectively. "And I got a real shock when nobody called me up to make me into a big star. So I wandered through the city and cleaned up my apartment five times a day - until I noticed that I had to do something if I wanted to get something in my life."

That is when the composer and songwriter Rebekka Bakken suddenly started to flower. "I wrote because I enjoyed it. Not because I wanted to show it to others or recite it, but rather in order to 'research' myself and my own thoughts", she said. "It is as though I make myself available to the song, open myself to it. I don't force anything, I just let it happen. Things come to me, and I sing them." And so it was only a matter of time until somebody noticed her natural talent.

The label Universal Music offered Rebekka Bakken a chance to produce and record her own material. The first album – released 2003 - was "The Art Of How To Fall". In this production as in the follow-up album "Is that you?", 2005,  she of course had only handpicked musicians at her side. "The production of the second album released a bundle of energy and gave me confidence that I could continue as an artist", she reported at the time, less modestly than reflectively.

Just a year later she poured her newly released energy into her third album (September 06) – and she has long since found her way as an artist, singer and composer.

(source: http://rebekkabakken.universalmusic.at)