Swedish Music Spring – UmeDuo

Cello and percussion duo UmeDuo perform internationally with a versatile repertoire and are established as one of Sweden’s most innovative and creative chamber music groups. Sisters Erika and Karolina Öhman, born in Umeå, founded the duo in 2008. In 2020, UmeDuo released Scrapes and Soundscapes, with Swedish music dedicated to the duo.

Rei Munakata was born in Japan, but lives and works in Sweden. Satto is inspired by his experience of how time seemed to slow while visiting Kiruna in northern Sweden, with a sense of calm, quiet and perhaps solitude. Swedish-Brazilian Ricardo Eizirik’s creative work focuses on everyday sounds and phenomena. Re/wind/re/write revolves around the functions of a tape player: recording, playing, fast-forwarding and rewinding.

Next, we hear two world premieres. Madeleine Isaksson’s Field for solo cello portrays a horizontal expanse – a field. The music is organised into four fields with different registers or tempos that move in something like a circuit through different moods. In COOPERANDUM, Paula af Malmborg Ward was inspired by Mauricio Kagel’s instrumental theatre and has endeavoured to express all things seen and heard: for example, the placement of a foot, or words that are tossed out, or how the duo plays and listens together. 

In collaboration with Svensk Musikvår
For more information about the entire program (opens in a new window)