Composer Weekend Tarrodi – Miroirs

Composer Weekend 2018, held 12–15 April, is dedicated to Andrea Tarrodi, whose music will “take your breath away”, as Dagens Nyheter wrote. Qualities often mentioned include her music’s colourful richness and peculiar play of light. She has garnered significant attention in recent years, and her work has been performed several times before at Konserthuset.

All three pieces played before intermission at this concert are based on Isaac Grünewald’s murals in Grünewald Hall, music that emerged via interplay with the concert venue itself. The painting that inspired Chàrites for Harp and Percussion depicts three women who appear to be dancing in a trance-like state. Another painting in Grünewald Hall depicts two people facing one another in apparent conversation. It serves as the basis of Andrea Tarrodi’s first string quartet – Miroirs. Grünewald’s colossal ceiling mural in Grünewald Hall gave life to Empíreo for Harp, Percussion and String Quintet.

Bird Lady, one of the electro-acoustic pieces presented after intermission, is based instead on a song by Marlene Dietrich and a bizarre-but-true story of a Stockholm woman who kidnapped eleven swans. We will also hear two pieces with bandoneon: the tango-influenced El Hielo for Bandoneon and Brass Quintet, and Childhood for Bandoneon and EAM Speakers (a co-composition with Jens Lundberg). In addition, we will enjoy the premiere performance of a brand new piece for brass quintet.