Lena Margareta

Lena Margareta grew up outside of Stockholm. She discovered Louis Armstrong and started playing the trumpet at the age of nine, but soon her love of singing took over. In her mid teens she received a scholarship to study jazz vocals privately for Margareta Thalén Ekstam, head of the vocal education at SMI, University College of Music Education in Stockholm. While developing as a professional jazz singer, Lena kept playing the trumpet as a second instrument. She entered the Stockholm independent ska scene and played, sang and wrote songs for numerous ska bands, touring Sweden and Poland with Krabb, and gigging in Germany with Lügchen, before starting her own ska/jazz band Bakelit. After re-locating to London in 2013 she took up the autoharp, and has since then played solo gigs with her own brand of jazz/ska/country, whilst also working with various constellations of London musicians. She has run a regular ska jam and her two own comedy nights, is frequently in demand as a quiz master and has recently developed her popular live music quiz. She is also regularly hired as a bugle player to play at funerals and military memorial services. Lena Margareta is a full time freelance musician, with a voice that has been compared to chocolate and Erykah Badu, a kind and friendly stage personality and a sunny disposition.