Niklas Winter

Niklas Winter is a jazz guitarist and composer born in Turku, Finland. He has made nine albums since 1999 as a leader, and many more as a co-leader and sideman, having recorded with Kenny Wheeler, Lars Jansson, Severi Pyysalo and many others. Winter studied guitar at the Turku Conservatory during 1985-1990 and later, at Berklee College of Music in the mid-’90s. Later collaborations include guitar duos with Jesse Van Ruller, Ulf Wakenius, Lorenzo Cominoli, Teemu Viinikainen, and with vibraphonist Severi Pyysalo. Band projects include Niklas Winter Quartet, Winter’s Jazz Workshop and a collaboration with Henry Lowther and the Utopia Chamber Choir in Winter’s Graduale project. Winter has played concerts with the Turku Philharmonic Orchestra in productions with Kiri Te Kanawa and in Mikko Heiniö’s Opera, Erik XIV. He has performed at the London Jazz Festival, Pori Jazz Festival, Tampere Jazz Festival, Copenhagen and Aarhus Jazz Festivals, Orta and Nuoro Jazz Festivals, Turku Music Festival Viapori Jazz Festival and the Yokohama Jazz Promenade, among many other performances around the world. Since the year 2000, Winter has also composed music for television documentaries for the Finnish Broadcasting Company, YLE. As of 2010, Winter has been a guitar instructor at the Jyväskylä University of Applied Sciences. Niklas has led workshops at the Chugye University for The Arts in 2019, Aarhus University in 2019, the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in 2016 and at the Beijing Central Conservatory in 2008 and 2011. In 2000, Winter received the Young Arts Award, and in 2001 the Aboa Price. In 2006 Winter received the Western Cultural Award by Svenska Kulturfonden. Winter started his jazz record label, Abovoice, in 2000. Today, the catalog consists of 18 releases. The label received a Finnish Jazz Grammy in 2003 with André Sumelius’ album, Kaira. Niklas Winter’s new album ‘Graduale’ was released on the 15th of January 2023. This albums consists of his original compositions and his arrangements for a quartet and a choir. Melodies are used from the oldest written music in Finland, The Graduale Aboense.