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2021 NativeDSD Album of the Year Award – Classical Guitar

On Take Me Along (Ta’ Mig Med), guitarist Jesper Sivebæk plays the music of rock musician Kim Larsen on Classical Guitar. Kim Larsen – the much-loved Danish rock musician and multi-artist – captured – in music and words – the Danish soul. With 500 recorded songs and 40 albums he was known by Danes of all ages.

Jesper Sivebæk, Guitarist, and head of guitar department at The Royal Academy of Music in Copenhagen, had two heroes in his youth: Andrés Segovia and Kim Larsen – and they have followed him ever since.

For more than 10 years Jesper Sivebæk has worked on the pieces on this album. With his vast experience he uses the possibilities of the guitar to the utmost and follows the classical tradition of making instrumental versions of folk songs – like in Miguel Llobet’s arrangements of Catalan folksongs, in Benjamin Britten’s English and Chinese folksongs arrangements, and in Bela Bartok’s Hungarian folk songs. Sivebæk is true both to the beauty and the simplicity of Kim Larsen’s songs, and to his instrument – the classical Spanish guitar. In these arrangements, classical guitar players around the globe now have 12 new pieces to discover and put on their concert programs.

Erik Jensen, journalist, and former musical editor at Politiken wrote:
“Kim Larsen was unrivalled at taking the big moments and feelings of existence and converting them into music and lyrics in a playful, direct language that Danes loved. In his songs we were able to mirror ourselves and be precisely the Danes we wanted to be free and brazen, willful, and provocative, but also poetic and elegant, sensitive, and standing shoulder to shoulder with those struggling in society.

It is also striking that because the Danes’ favorite artist had so many roles and forms of expression, people in Denmark often underestimate his most important capacity: that of a composer. Thanks to Sivebæk’s fine versions of some of the melodies, they can now stand beautifully and pure in their own right – without being ‘packaged’ in all the commotion and mythology that surrounded Kim Larsen.”

Jesper Sivebæk – Guitar