Johanna Sulkunen is a Finnish experimental vocalist, composer and improviser based in Copenhagen since 2009. She has released five critically acclaimed albums. Sulkunen's work spans from free improvisation, electronic music, and avant-garde. In 2018 she launched the experimental solo project Sonority, and ever since the symbiosis of vocals and electronics has been in the center of her career.
Johanna is a frequent collaborator with other artists in Copenhagen's vibrant music scene, and internationally. She has performed with iconic jazz & improv and electronic musicians such as Tomasz Stanko, Bjørn Svin, Blixa Bargeld, Michiyo Yagi, Burkhard Beins, Lotte Anker, Lisa Ullén, Axel Dörner, Mike Sheridan, and many others. She has also worked on various interdisciplinary projects, collaborating with dancers, poets, and filmmakers. In 2023 - 2025 she performed with Blixa Bargeld and IKI in Hotel Pro Forma’s acclaimed production Flammenwerfer with Blixa Bargelds and Niels Frahms music that won the prize "Music Theatre of the Year" at the Årets Reumert awards in Denmark 2025.
Since 2009 she has been part of the acclaimed Scandinavian vocal group IKI whose debut album from 2011 received a Danish Music Award for Jazz vocal album of the year. The same year, she also released her debut album as a solo artist, the critically acclaimed “Our Garden” (released as Johanna Elina) that introduced her as an exciting and adventurous vocalist and composer in her own right. In 2016 the album was followed up by the equally impressive “Belonging”, which was nominated for a Danish Music Award for the best vocal jazz album.In 2018 she returned as a solo performer under the new moniker Sonority, releasing the album “Koan”, the first part of a planned trilogy, where the second installment is the 2021-release “Terra”.
While still containing elements of jazz and improvisation, the Sonority project sees Sulkunen taking her voice into new sonic territory, working in the direction of electroacoustic composition, experimental ambient and field recordings. Across the SONORITY trilogy, Sulkunen investigates the voice from different perspectives. KOAN explores perception, language, and meditative listening through manipulated vocals and electroacoustic textures. TERRA, selected among A Closer Listen’s Top 10 Experimental Albums of 2021, expands the inquiry toward ecology, landscape, and the interconnectedness of natural systems, combining field recordings, ambient composition, and experimental vocal techniques.Sonority is an ongoing research about resonance of the human body- voice and electronics.
Her full-length solo album, COEXISTENCE (2024), turns the act of listening outward. Drawing on her anthropology background, Sulkunen developed the album through conversations with people whose voices are often marginalized, including refugees and unhoused individuals. Beginning with the question “What would you say if the whole world was listening?”, these encounters became both conceptual foundation and musical material. Fragments of voices are woven into layered compositions exploring themes of home and displacement, borders and belonging, dreams, memory and shared humanity.
In her Sonority concerts, she often performs solo on stage as a hybrid between visual artist Tapani Toivanen, creating immersive concert experiences. With Sonority, she has toured across Europe, as well as Japan and Korea.
OTHER COLLABORATIONS:
JOHANNA SULKUNEN X BJØRN SVIN
JOHANNA SULKUNEN X MICHIYO YAGI
KAHINA ( Johanna Sulkunen (vocals/composition), Randi Pontoppidan (vocals/composition), Guro Tveitnes (vocals), Jullie Hjetland (vocals), Kamilla Kovacs (vocals), Carolyn Goodwin (bass clarinet), Mika Persdotter (viola), Anne Andersen (trumpet), Ida Bach Jensen (double bass) and Maria Dybbroe (saxophone).
SHIVERS (Lisa Ullén, Burkhard Beins, Louise Jensen, Henrik Olsson)
SCANDINAVIAN ART ENSEMBLE (Johanna Elina Sulkunen vocal, Snorri Sigurðarson trumpet, Tomasz Dąbrowski trumpet, Thomas Hass saxophone, Artur Tuźnik piano, Martin Fabricius vibraphone, Richard Andersson double bass, Radek Wośko drums2 albums released with Tomasz Stanko-trumpet)
CALUM BUILDER (self-constructed organ, voices: Zola Mennenoeh, Johanna Sulkunen)
HOTEL PROFORMA - 'Flammenwerfer' with IKI
DISCOGRAPHY
ALTHOUGH CHANGED, I ARISE THE SAME / Calum Builder
(Re)Constructed Pipe Organ and voices
2026, Thanatosis
Vinyl, Digital
CPH SESSIONS VOL.2 feat. Tomasz Stańko / SCANDINAVIAN ART ENSEMBLE
2025, April Records
Vinyl, Digital
CPH SESSIONS VOL.1 feat. Tomasz Stańko / SCANDINAVIAN ART ENSEMBLE
2025, April Records
Vinyl, Digital
BODY / IKI
2025, Tila
Vinyl, CD, digital
COEXISTENCE / Johanna Sulkunen Sonority
2024, Tila
Vinyl, CD, digital, booklet
TERRA / Johanna Sulkunen Sonority
2021, Tila
Vinyl, CD, digital
AIKA / Tila
2021, Amp Music & Records
Vinyl, CD, digital
KOAN / Johanna Sulkunen Sonority
2018, ILK
Vinyl, digital
ORACLE / IKI
2018, DME
Vinyl, CD, digital
SKUGGOR OCH LJUS / Joel Illerhag Nephilim Ensemble
2017, Gateway
CD, digital
PLASTIC ISLAND / Plastic Island
2016, Gateway
Digital
BELONGING / Johanna Elina
2016, Eclipse Music / DME
CD, digital
DEW / IKI
2016, DME
LAVA / IKI
2014, DME
IKI / IKI
2011, ILK
OUR GARDEN / Johanna Elina
2011, Eclipse Music / Divine Records