Bio
Sebastian Cardenas Persson was born 1995 in Bogota, Colombia and came to Stockholm, Sweden when he was just 3 months old. Encouraged by a musical family with a mom playing piano and singing in choir and a dad blasting jazz and latin american cumbia music out of the stereo system on weekends, he got in touch with music from a very young age. It wasn't until he was 13 years old that he found the joy of playing, learning and dedicating himself to an instrument. This instrument of choice was the electric guitar. He quickly began composing music and started his first rock band almost instantly after he got his first electric guitar on his 13th birthday. Very dedicated from the start, he practiced for hours and hours, always letting his friends down that wanted to play football, he was instead learning classic rock tunes from bands such as AC/DC, Guns n Roses, Motley Crue, KISS among others.
After a teenage period of only listening to classic rock, by the age of 16 he began to open himself up for many other musical styles, mostly by the help of his teacher at elementary school. In 2011 he enrolled at the Swedish gymnasium called Rytmus and instantly decided to dedicate his musical development to jazz. Being very dedicated, almost to the point of unhealthiness, he had a strict 2 hour practice schedule that he followed every day. With the help of great teachers such as Fredrik Vislander, Jonas Edquist, Daniel Svensson and Efraim Törnfeldt, he managed to get far in his development of the musical language of jazz. It was also here that he had his first experience with the transcendence of jazz, a feeling he felt that was simply, 'I can do this for the rest of my life, I have to do this for the rest of my life'.
At his graduation concert, he played 4 original jazz compositions of his with fellow friends at the school. The concert was a great success and one of the hits he wrote was entitled 'Tellus', a song he wrote for his black dwarf poodle that he had been taking care of as a puppy.
After high school he applied to pre-college schools in Sweden and got admitted to Bollnäs Folkhögskola, taking the 1 spot that was available at the time, which greatly surprised him. There he got to meet great teachers and
the one that made a lifelong impact on him was the guitarist and artist Mattias Windemo. Unfortunately, he left Bollnäs Folkhögskola after just half a year to enroll at Fridhems Folkhögskola. There he got to hear the great jazz musicians of the day developing their sound and craft. The greatest joy was to just walk around in the corridors, listening to amazing saxophonists and trumpet
players. He stayed at Fridhems Folkhögskola for 1 and a half year where he studied with Mats Holtne, Michala Østergaard-Nielsen, Magnus Hjorth,
Mattias Hjorth and Jan Karlsson among others.
After a year of no studies, 2017 he enrolled at Malmö Academy of Music where he spent 3 years doing a bachelor degree in jazz improvisation. At the Academy, he studied with Peter Nilsson, Samuel Hällkvist, Maggi Olin, Almaz Yebio, Carl-Axel Andersson,
Per-Oscar Nilsson, Lars Greve, Christina Von Bülow among others. After graduation, he has been fully dedicated to the art of improvisation and is a freelance guitarist, saxophonist and clarinetist on a full time basis.
Composing ever since he first picked up the guitar, it's needless to say he has a lot of experience in the field. His sincere, soft characteristic estetic of songwriting travels through and touches all hearts. It often transcends mere musical boundries and invites the listener to create their own inner landscapes while hearing Sebastian's music. His style oozes genuinity and spirituallity without being pretentious and still having deep dug roots to the jazz tradition.
As a musician, he's most definitely a being that has to be experienced live to get the full picture. An expressionistic improviser. A deeply dedicated soul with an extraordinary sense of the moment, Sebastian Persson has performed with and elevated the performance of many nationally and internationally acclaimed musicians such as Jan Lundgren, Vivian Buzcek, Isak Hedtjärn, Elin Forkelid, Michala Østergaard-Nielsen, Hannes Bennich, Christina Von Bülow, Kathrine Windfeld, Johnny Åman, Magnus Hjorth, Sven-Erik Lundeqvist, Felisia Westberg.