Bandhagen Scen

bakom bortom

Inversion

Curious Chamber Players, one of Sweden’s most active contemporary music ensembles, is based in Stockholm and was founded in 2003 by composer Malin Bång, conductor Rei Munakata and percussionist Martin Strand. CCP has collaborated with many young composers, and has premiered more than 40 pieces, many of these composed directly for the ensemble. CCP also serves as a forum and a network for the young generation of composers and musicians.

The ensemble experiments with performance space and time, and has an aim to develop the concert form. CCP has for example collaborated with other art forms involving interactive video, drama improvisation, mime and poetry. The group's musical performances spans over traditionally notated music, ”cross over music”, graphically notated music, instrumental sound installations, and improvisation.

Malin Bång is CCP’s ”composer in residence”.  In course of her residency, she composed pieces such as "The Curious Collection", "Faces and Moon Splinters", ”Sanguine Sand”, ”Polyphony of Moving Objects” and ”La Grande Vita dei Fiori” through close collaboration with the ensemble members. Curious Chamber Players has the instrumentation of flute, clarinet, harpsichord, piano, percussion, string trio and conductor, and the ensemble performs both as the whole group or as smaller constellations.

www.curiouschamberplayers.com

Bandhagen Scen: The Stockholm suburb Bandhagen is right now like a boiling pot of artistic ideas merging among poets, musicians, artists, stage performers and composers. Bandhagen Scen is at the same time a meeting place, a performance room and a work space that we have renovated and build up together. It all started more than a year ago and in September 2009 it was finally time for the official opening concert!

Bakom, bortom is a quartet made up by Sabine Vogel flutes, Bengt Emil Johnson texts and recitation, Kerstin Ståhl voice and Malin Bång sound objects and electronics. Performance and poetry meet composed and improvised music, both acoustic and electronic. The group made a tour from the north to the south of Sweden in November 2007, with own material and premiered also the work Sjömansblock by Rei Munakata.

Kerstin Ståhl, hailed mezzo soprano, who has since the sixties specialised in new and experimental music, being part of the legendary group ”Harpans kraft”. Many composers have composed directly for her unique voice and together with Bengt Emil Johnson she has developed an advanced form of recitation where performance meets poetry.

Sabine Vogel, flutist living in Potsdam, with focus on free improvisation and contemporary music. Vogel’s playing is dominated by unusual playing techniques for piccolo, flute, bass flute and electronics, and the sound world she creates in her performances is very delicate and distinctive, presenting a unique form of music for flute.

Bengt Emil Johnson, poet, writer, performer, composer. As a pioneer with the text-sound compositions during the sixties, he made the electronic music of Sweden known to the world. He has always been interested in improvisation and collective composing, and as a poet he has published a large number of poetry collections. Extistential reflections and nature are themes that appear in his thoughtful and humouristic texts.

Inversion consists of six young female musicians from Sweden, Norway and Finland – the  conductors Marit Strindlund, Cathrine Winnes and Marie Rosenmir and the composers Lotta Wennäkoski, Tebogo Monnakgotla and Malin Bång. They collaborate with ensembles and orchestras in the Nordic countries.

The intention of Inversion is to present contemporary music in a new and innovative way for a broad spectrum of audience. Each concert is carefully planned concerning the use of the room, the light design, the overall form of the performance and activities surrounding the concert. During the concert the audience meets each composer, who gives a short presentation on her ideas in music, her background for the piece and the collaboration with the ensemble and conductor. Through this personal meeting with the composer behind the work we want to make the contemporary music easier to grasp for the listener. We also believe that a concert form, where the audience meets three different conductors and composers will aim to create a rich and varied concert experience.