Highlights

Sunna Gunnlaugs plays piano the way Iceland feels — spacious, luminous, alive with quiet drama. But her music carries another fingerprint, too: twelve years in New York, where she came of age in the late-night sessions and listening rooms that shaped a generation of jazz musicians. Critics call what emerges from that double inheritance "Nordic-Americana" – European elegance and a fiery New York drive in the same breath.

"Such timeless virtues as lyricism and grace… elegantly bridges soul-searching passages with uncluttered swing."
— The Washington Post

Over fifteen albums on her own Sunny Sky Records label, she has built one of European jazz's most consistent bodies of work – every record nominated for the Icelandic Music Awards, two earning her Performer of the Year. She has played JazzAhead, the Kennedy Center, the London Jazz Festival, Rotterdam, Montreal, and Tokyo, and her work has been reviewed across DownBeat, Jazzwise, Jazzthetik, Swing Journal, and many more. Her latest album, Becoming, features her long-running trio with bassist Þorgrímur Jónsson and drummer Scott McLemore… a partnership now more than a decade deep. A sixth trio album, Go Round Merry recorded in early 2025, premiered at the Reykjavík Jazz Festival.

Beyond the bandstand, she serves as Artistic Director of the Reykjavík Jazz Festival and Vice President of the European Jazz Network, and founded Freyjujazz – a concert series championing women in jazz that was named Event of the Year at the Icelandic Music Awards.

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