CD диск Wesseltoft, Bugge - It's Still Snowing On My Piano 1CD (0614427801920)

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“Would you like to make a Christmas record?” asked Siggi Loch, the legendary founder of the ACT record label. He was in Oslo to collect music for a Christmas album compilation when we first met in the fall of 1997. I hesitated — not being a huge fan of the Christmas shopping madness and stressed-out happiness. Having worked at a mental hospital some years earlier, I had shockingly discovered that Christmas was a high season for depression, mental breakdowns, and family problems. I felt so lucky growing up in a family where Christmas Eve was a heartwarming, quiet evening spent with the close family. Giving Siggi’s proposal a second thought, I agreed to make a Christmas album — on my own terms: quiet, slow, focused on loving childhood memories and the songs we sang while holding hands and circling the Christmas tree.
I remember being very nervous during the recording. This was my first solo piano recording — and in the famous Rainbow Studio, with the legendary Jan Erik Kongshaug engineering, on the same piano that Keith Jarrett frequently played. I do think you can hear my hands tremble as I held on to my idea for the record: an intro variation, theme, improvisation, theme, and outro variation, interpreting the melodies as calmly and sincerely as possible — trying to bring back those warming childhood memories.
It’s Snowing on My Piano was released in 1997 with little expectation. The album was believed to be too quiet and slow for significant sales or attention. However, 4–5 years later, it started to pick up in the December sales charts, eventually topping them in 2006 — reaching No. 2, only beaten by Mariah Carey. That same year, I performed my first concert with the album at Kalkmølla, a small, cozy cultural venue outside Oslo. I remember sitting down at the piano, surrounded by 100 people in a small acoustic room. I started playing softly and slowly, just like on the album. After a couple of songs, I could hear the deep breaths from the audience. “Oh God, this must be so boring for them,” I thought.
Sure that they would all leave, I kept playing out of respect for the promoter’s wish. But to my surprise, no one left. After the concert, they all told me how relaxed they felt and what a great experience it had been for them — explaining how they slowly drifted away, remembering relatives and childhood stories during my improvisations. Little did I know that my idea of how to record those childhood songs would create some kind of mind fulness (long before I had even heard the term). It changed my view on what music is about: a way to connect, express, share, and create good moments together with the listener. Since 2006, I have performed this music for large audiences every December. It’s incredible to feel the shared energy that music and audience create together in the concert hall. I’m eternally thankful to everyone who spends time listening to music and going to concerts. You mean much more than you know.
Bugge Wesseltoft, Oslo 2025