Viktoria Tolstoy's ACT debut album, "Shining On You" from 2004, can now be seen as a defining moment, marking the beginning of the continuing success story of popular jazz voices from Scandinavia. The music was written by Esbjörn Svensson, who also formed the core band together with Dan Berglund and Magnus Öström and was soon to become world-famous as "e.s.t.". The album, produced by Nils Landgren, was also a gathering of the ACT family of artists - also in its infancy back then - who joined the session as guests.
Exactly 20 years later, in "Stealing Moments", Viktoria Tolstoy has once again taken up the idea of “the family" making music together. The compositions are by a whole host of current ACT artists, many of whom had an involvement in "Shining on You". It includes "Hands Off", originally an instrumental composition by the late Esbjörn Svensson; Svensson's widow Eva has written a very fine new lyric for it. Long-time friends and companions - Nils Landgren, Ida Sand, Wolfgang Haffner, Cæcilie Norby, Lars Danielsson, Iiro Rantala and Jan Lundgren - have all written new music specifically with Tolstoy and her voice in mind.
"When you sing, the sun rises," Pat Metheny once told Viktoria Tolstoy. The thread which unifies all the tracks on "Stealing Moments" is her strong, crystal clear voice, together with her temperament, in which lightness and coruscating energy always irresistibly co-exist. Listeners are going to enjoy this music as much as she does...and she knows it. Or as she says, subtly re-forming the words of the album title into an implicit invitation: "Let me steal a little bit of time to listen."
