MUSIC - Guitarist - Mikael Björck

from Gothenburg Sweden. Mikael began playing guitar at the age of 10. He says his "first idols were guitar players like Mike Stern, Al DiMeola, Pat Martino and Swedish guitarist Janne Schaffer" ABBA's guitarist. Mikael attended a music high school where he was taught music theory and where he strove to improve his skills.

He says "I started to practice a lot and tried to get things together on my guitar, like scales and strange chords. In high school I started my first band, we played on different parties and pubs in my home town Gothenburg in Sweden, mostly we played instrumental music".

In 1988, at the age of 20, Mikael moved to Los Angeles (Hollywood) to study music at the Guitar Institute of Technology where he was taught by Scott Henderson, Frank Gambale, Joe Diorio and a number of other musicians. Referring to his year spent studying in L.A., he say "I learned a lot this year I think".

He moved back to Sweden and began playing with different bands.  During his musical career, Mikael has performed with his own band Mikael Bjorck's Back Seat Betty (Jazz, Funk and Blues), the Janne Ersson Big Band (http://janneersson.com/) playing the music of Buddy Rich and Gospel.Comp (Gospel music), and Soulbox. He has also played with Svante Thuresson, Hayati Kafe, Roger Pontare and Annkristin Hedmark.

Mikael has recorded two CD's - The return of "Tant" Benson (1998) and Holy Cow (2001) - and is working on his third now.

Mikael's MySpace page