Stockholm-based singer, pianist, and composer Nelly Klayman-Cohen, using the moniker Rotem Geffen, conjures up a refined yet raw dream world with her music. With a nod towards a more reserved and minimal approach to lyricism, her clever delivery is amplified by more wistful inflections. In lyrics that alternate between Hebrew, German and English, she works with fragments and memories. In her music, she collaborates with some of Stockholm’s most innovative improvising musicians, such as Isak Hedtjärn, Vilhelm Bromander, Milton Öhrström, Alex Zethson and Patric Thorman.

Her latest album The Night is the Night (2024) follows her debut You Guard the Key and was produced together with Alex Zethson and co-producer Anton Toorell. The record received widespread international acclaim. The Arts Desk (UK), for instance, wrote: “These songs are delicate but sturdy, fragile chamber pop touched with a modern classical seriousness that, happily, doesn’t stifle their easy flightiness”; while Freq (UK) wrote of the album that “[it] is a delightful collection of doomed romance delivered in a way that finds you holding your breath in anticipation.”

For this concert, Rotem Geffen appears in a duo format with Alex Zethson, performing on piano and synthesizers.

Nelly Klayman-Cohen - voice, piano
Alex Zethson - synths"

Photo: Mattias Pettersson