'Kajanus' Biography Buy the biography of Georg Kajanus from co-author James McCarraher's web site.

Georg Kajanus is a composer and singer/songwriter.  He is the son of Prince Paul Tchegodaieff of Russia and J. Kajanus, the award-winning Finnish/Norwegian sculptress. He is the great-grandson of Robert Kajanus: composer, conductor, confidant of Sibelius and founder of the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra. He is the brother of actress and film-maker Eva Norvind and the uncle to Mexican theater and television actress, Nailea Norvind.

Born in Trondheim, Norway, Kajanus moved with his mother and sister to Paris at the age of thirteen. It was there that he studied music and the classical guitar, as well as attending the Cité Universitaire’s flying school. The family then relocated to Canada where Kajanus worked as a stained glass window designer in Montreal, as well as becoming involved in the North American folk music scene.

After a yearlong journey through the Middle East and Europe, Kajanus moved to London, where he formed the folk/rock group, Eclection, whose other members included Kerrilee Male, Trevor Lucas, Michael Rosen and Gerry Conway. Eclection was one of the few British signings to the American label, Elektra Records, and they released one album entitled ‘Eclection’, which was a personal favorite of Elektra's founder, Jac Holzman. Eclection toured the UK extensively and appeared with such acts as Jimi Hendrix and Bob Dylan at the Isle Of Wight Festival.

Five years later, Kajanus used the colorful night life of Paris to invent Sailor, his second and highly successful foray in the music world. Kajanus was the lead singer and songwriter for the band, which was best known for the hits, 'A Glass Of Champagne' and 'Girls, Girls, Girls'.  Under Kajanus’ leadership, Sailor released five albums and was awarded numerous gold and silver records for its success in Europe and Australia. ‘A Glass of Champagne’ was used in the Marks and Spencer Autumn Collection commercial in 2006 and was re-worked by German mega-techno band Scooter as their current single and title track of their album, 'Jumping All Over The World'.

Kajanus then left Sailor to experiment with electronic music with his new creation, DATA. The classically orientated title track of DATA’s first album, ‘Opera Electronica’, was used as the theme music to the short film, ‘Towers Of Babel’ (1981), which was directed by Jonathan Lewis and starred Anna Quayle and Ken Campbell. ‘Towers Of Babel’ was nominated for a BAFTA award in 1982 and won the Silver Hugo Award for Best Short Film at the Chicago International Film Festival of the same year. Kajanus followed ‘Opera Electronica’ with two more albums: the experimental  ‘2-Time’ (1983) and the Country & Western inspired ‘Elegant Machinery’ (1985).  'Elegant Machinery' has become a cult hit through the American club world.

In 1986, Kajanus co-wrote & co-produced the album 'UME' with renowned film composer Shigeru Umebayashi ('The House of Flying Daggers', '2046' and ‘Hannibal Rising’).  Kajanus composed the soundtracks for two documentaries directed by German filmmaker Monika Treut: 'Didn't Do It For Love' (1997) -- a film about his sister, Eva Norvind, and 'Gendernauts' (1999). Kajanus  also created the music and sound effects  (with Henry Marsh) for the British TV series, 'The Kid' (1986). 

After a painting sojourn in Mexico, Kajanus was persuaded to reform Sailor in 1990 and it went on to achieve further success in Europe, releasing two albums: 'Sailor' and 'Street Lamp'.  A cover by Cuba Club of the single 'La Cumbia' from 'Sailor' is now a worldwide dancefloor success. 

In the late nineties, Kajanus left the group again to form the poetic-techno duo Noir with Tim Dry (previously of Tik and Tok). Noir’s single ‘Walking’ was used extensively in the Channel 4 television series, ‘Feast’, an avant-garde culinary program directed by TV food maestro David Pritchard. 'Feast' was also hosted by Noir and they wrote the theme music for the series.  Ten years later, Noir’s ‘Strange Desire’ CD has now been released on Angel Air Records.

July 2006 saw the world premiere of ‘Sailor, The Musical Journey’ at the Carnegie Hall, Dunfermline, Scotland. Written by Bill Blenman, the new musical is comprised entirely of Kajanus compositions and imaginatively taps into Kajanus’ early ‘70’s creation of sailors on shore leave and red light districts. The musical also features two new, previously unheard compositions by Kajanus.

2006 also saw the publication of Georg’s biography, co-written with James McCarraher, entitled ‘Kajanus’.

Kajanus is now exploring his great-grandfather’s classical roots and mining his well-honed pop music sensibilities to create his latest opus, ‘People Industry’, which is an unusual look at the extraordinary world of Homo Sapiens.  

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