Summary

Hailing from Östersund, Sweden, I have studied at the Royal College of Music, Stockholm, and the Royal Danish Academy of Music, Copenhagen.

In my work, I often explore quiet tension, exposedness and imperfection. I’m fascinated by the grandiosity and intimacy that a “small” music can create. A recent interest of mine is incomplete, unbalanced, or unfulfilled form. This is likely a search for some sort of “sublime imperfection”, in turn, a step in the search for an intimate music.

My works have been performed in the Nordic countries, Europe and the US by among others the Arditti quartet, ensemble recherche, the Keuris quartet, MolOt ensemble, and Norrbotten NEO. My orchestral work Half-light on desolation has been awarded multiple times and my string quartet Plasticity has been selected to numerous festivals. I have also participated in masterclasses with Chaya Czernowin, Kaija Saariaho, Simon Steen-Andersen, among others.

Biography

Distinctions

Education

We are given an exciting balance between harmonic and warped materials. High-pitched tone pirouettes are mixed with muted sections where the instruments breathe together. Other moments cut like nails on chalkboards or literally sound like air raid sirens. An imaginative moment with beautiful interplay between the ensemble.

Piteå-Tidningenon Plasticity. (free translation)

Biography

I grew up in Östersund, Sweden – a northern Swedish town of ca. 60 000 inhabitants, marked by being a focal point for winter sports, and sports in general for that matter.

Coming from a family with a strong musical background, at age 5 my worldview was such that I asked my mom, “Does everyone in the whole world have to play the violin?”. I was quite relieved when the answer was no. That said, I professed that I might be interested in playing trombone, for reasons unbeknownst to everyone at the time.

Like many others before me, my path in music has been all but straight-forward. After exploring many different genres and instruments, I started to realize that I enjoyed writing songs more than playing them. Eventually, it dawned on me that one could, actually, be a composer.

Winding back the clock though, I did not actually start playing music “properly” until I, one day, heard one of my classmates in 3rd grade play the infamous Für Elise. Not wanting to be outmatched, I was prompted to pick up playing the piano. The rest is, as they say, history.

Biography, cont.

While I can’t speak for everyone growing up in Östersund, my high school years were marked by an enormous disinterest in sports. My hometown, somehow, seems to have a world cup of some sort of skiing or other every year. I was lucky to find a mentor in Johan Ederfors, a local composer, an exceedingly rare thing in my home county of Jämtland.

When I first started composing, I felt like I’d come home. Studying it, even more so. Focusing 100% on writing music for the first time in my life, I was somewhat like a kid in a candy store.

However, beginning my studies at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm also brought on a confusion of musical identity. Writing the work Half-light on desolation represented a culmination of a melodic style informed by Stravinsky, Lutoslawski, and more. But in terms of what I actually wanted to do with my music, I was at a loss.

The work andas, upphör (2015) represents, I believe, an early indication of what would come to be my new direction. While the melodic material borrows from Half-light on desolation, the character is more subdued, the expressivity withheld.

Per Mårtensson, who began teaching at the Royal College in 2016, came to be an important mentor of mine. With his guidance, I started to find my purpose – exploring, or more precisely searching for, an intimacy in my music.

Since then, my music has focused on quiet tension, exposedness, fragments, the incomplete, and the imperfect. A recent obsession of mine is “bad timing” and simultaneous processes. Discovering Bernd Alois Zimmermann’s haunting work Stille und Umkehr has also sparked a special interest in the unfulfilled.

Nowadays based in Copenhagen, I feel (at the time of writing, early 2019) like I have found my focal point at last – but that is likely a naive notion.

Distinctions

Competitions/calls for works

  • Scenkonst Sörmland Young-composer-in-residence 2022
  • International Clarinet Association composition competition 2021: where do we go now? named “highly commendable work”
  • New Note International Composer Competition 2021: prize winner with Crumblings
  • Musequal composer competition 2021: shortlisted with Innermost Peace
  • Universal Artists festival 2019: selected with Plasticity
  • O/Modernt composition award 2019, awarded for Piano quintet
  • Ivan Juritz Prize 2019: longlisted with Plasticity
  • MusArt Kaleidoscope call for scores 2019: selected with Isolated strands of reflection
  • Nordic music days 2019: selected with Plasticity
  • Young Nordic Music 2019: selected with Plasticity
  • festival mise-en 2019: selected with Plasticity
  • 113 Collective call for scores 2018: selected with Isolated strands of reflection
  • FST presentation day 2018 for new Swedish orchestral music: selected by the Swedish society of composers with Half-light on desolation.
  • North Carolina New Music Initiative 2017: prize winner with Half-light on desolation
  • Vox Novus 2017: selected in call for scores with Admiral Launch duo
  • FST presentation day 2017 for new Swedish orchestral music: selected by the Swedish society of composers with Three endings for 15 strings.
  • 4×4 Prizes 2016: 1st prize winner with Half-light on desolation.
  • STRESS THE AKADEMIROMMET: selected with nova
  • Composer-in-residence, Lövstabruk chamber music festival 2015
  • FUTURE LEGENDS NORDIC 2014: selected with höstdikt.2 in call-for works at Palladium, Malmö
  • Susanville Symphony Composition Competition 2013: 2nd prize in category “composers under 25”

Grants/scholarships

  • Danish Arts Foundation work grant 2023
  • Swedish Arts Council work grant 2022
  • Swedish Arts Council residency w/ Kwartludium 2022
  • Danish Arts Foundation work grant 2022
  • Danish Arts Foundation commission grant 2022
  • KODA work grant 2022
  • KODA commission grant 2021
  • Helge Ax:son Johnson foundation grant 2020
  • Swedish Royal Academy of Music grant 2019
  • Gålö foundation scholarship 2019
  • Carl Erik Levin foundation 2018 & 2019
  • Håkan Näsman memorial fund 2018
  • Tove Birthe Jensens scholarship 2018
  • STIM scholarship 2018
  • Helge Ax:son Johnson foundation scholarship 2018
  • Helge Ax:son Johnson foundation scholarship 2017
  • Alvar Kraft scholarship 2017
  • STIM (Swedish PRO) grant 2016
  • Swedish Royal Academy of Music grant 2016
  • Alvar Kraft scholarship 2015
  • Region Jämtland Härjedalens culture scholarship 2015

Education

Masterclasses

Time of Music Viitasaari 2018

Masterclass with Chaya Czernowin, project with the Arditti Quartet

MolOt Masterclasses 2017

Masterclass with Helena Tulve and Alexander Knaifel, project with MolOt ensemble

Archipel Ose! Academy 2017

Masterclass with Kaija Saariaho and Orchestre symphonique Ose! at Archipel festivel, Geneva

Kyiv Contemporary Music Days 2016

Masterclass with Jaime Reis in Kyiv, Ukraine

New Music for Strings 2016

Masterclass with Simon Steen-Andersen and Eivind Buende in Aarhus, Denmark

Ticino Musica 2015

Masterclass with Johannes Schöllhorn and Mathias Steinauer in Ticino, Switzerland

Degrees

Royal Danish Academy of Music, Copenhagen

Master's programme in composition, 2018 - 2021

Royal College of Music, Stockholm

Bachelor's programme in composition, 2013 - 2016

Framnäs folkhögskola, Piteå

Pre-college composition program, 2011-2013