Mamma Mia! - May 09 - May 11, 2024
Poquoson High School
Who's Who
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Björn Ulvaeus
Music and Lyrics
1945 Björn was born on 25 April in Gothenburg. When he was six years old, the family moved to the small town of Västervik, and this is where Björn grew up. In the mid-Fifties, Björn fell in love with rock’n’roll and skif e. By the early Sixties, he was a member of a folk group called the West Bay Singers. 1963 The group entered a talent contest arranged by Swedish radio. This led to discovery by songwriter and publisher Stig Anderson and his partner, Bengt Bernhag. Stig and Bengt had recently started a record company called Polar Music.
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Björn Ulvaeus- continued 2
The band acquired a new name, the Hootenanny Singers, and quickly became one of Sweden’s most popular groups of the Sixties. 1966 Björn had a chance meeting with Benny Andersson, himself a member of Sweden’s number-one pop group, The Hep Stars. They hit it off and wrote their first song together, ‘Isn’t It Easy to Say’. Björn recorded a couple of solo singles in the late Sixties, at which point he also started concentrating more on his collaboration with Benny Andersson. 1970 Björn and Benny started releasing records as a duo and also staged a cabaret show together with their fiancées, Agnetha Fältskog and Anni-Frid Lyngstad. 1971 Björn and Agnetha married on 6 July.
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Björn Ulvaeus- continued 3
1972-82 ABBA.
1982 Björn and Benny started writing the musical Chess with lyricist Tim Rice.
1984 A concept album for Chess was released in the autumn.
1986 The musical opened in London’s West End in May.
1988 Chess received its Broadway premiere. A reworked version of the musical opened in Stockholm, Sweden, in 2002.
1990 Björn and Benny decided to write a new musical. This time, they wanted to write exclusively in Swedish, and they chose the Emigrants novel series by author Vilhelm Moberg as the basis for their work.
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