"How come a Swedish orchestra is touring with some of the coolest US legendary bands?" 
That's a question we've heard many times so here's a flashback for the curious:

It all began in May 2002 when LOVE's ex-manager, the late Gene Kraut (who at the time lived in Stockholm) was looking for an ensemble to join LOVE and Arthur Lee on a concert at Södra Teatern in Stockholm on the 21st of May. Arthur Lee was just on his way back with his band after some tough years and they were about to celebrate the forthcoming 35th anniversery of the legendary album "Forever Changes" and they were all determined that this was going to be something really special.

Gene asked Gunnar Nordén, who had worked with him in earlier projects, to write down the orchestra arrangements from "Forever Changes". They also decided to bring on a new Swedish string ensemble that Anna Landberg was a member of. Anna also asked her talanted trumpet playing friend Stefan to bring on some horn players to the concert at Södra Teatern.

The concert was a great success, the papers wrote: "LOVE with strings & horns is magical" and Arthur was really enthusiastic about his Swedish ensemble. The moment  when "Forever Changes" was performed with strings and horns live for the first time since the recording was made in 1967 was historical both for Arthur and of course for many of his fans who had waited for such a long time for this to happen.

It wasn't long until they wanted "The Swedes" back to perform with the band again, this time at the Roskilde Festival in Denmark. Again the success was repeated and LOVE was demanded in different cities around the world. Gene was now planning a UK tour in January 2003 which also included the Swedish ensemble who now worked under the name "Forever Changes Orchestra". The tour was amazing, sold out arenas everywhere and the audience was overwhelmed by the sound of Arthur, LOVE and the orchestra playing together. During the UK tour (which included around 20 places) the orchestra grew stronger as a group and the name "Stockholm Strings n' Horns" came up.

People were totally amazed about the young Swedish orchestra that played so well and also helped to make the performances even more interesting by their way to take part in the concerts and showed people that they were really into the music and loved playing it. 

The success with LOVE continued during the year and Stockholm Strings n' Horns were asked to join the band for concerts in Greece, Netherlands, Scotland, Ireland and in May the ensemble appeared on the US tour across the country with concerts in Los Angeles, San Francisco (at the Fillmore), Chicago and New York. The Stockholm Strings n' Horns also played with LOVE at one of the world's largest festivals, The Glastonbury Festival, in June 2003 and also at the Canterbury Festival in August 2003. The ensemble also took part in the Jools Holland BBC TV show "LATER" in England November 2003.

Early autumn 2003 we recieved an e-mail from Los Angeles with a request to bring the ensemble on a tour with Brian Wilson (Beach Boys) February-March 2004. It turned out that the guys in LOVE (Mike, Rusty, Dave and Daddy O – the Baby Lemonade's) knew the keyboard player in Brian Wilsons band, Darian Sahanaja. They talked about bringing strings and horns on Brians SMiLE tour and Mike and the others suggested them to contact their Swedish friends, and well...  this is where we are today, back home in Sweden after the SMiLE World Tour 2004 & 2005. Please have a look at the Fun, Fun, Fun page for pictures from the SMiLE tour!

Thank You,   / The Stockholm Strings n' Horns