Swedish Music Spring – KammarensembleN

For its 40th anniversary (!), KammarensembleN has invited conductor Franck Ollu to a program that illuminates the past and future. Here, some of the ensemble's recurring classics are presented along with a new song cycle.

Henrik Strindberg's Etymology was premiered by the KammarensembleN in 1990. Strindberg was living in Paris at the time and was involved in computer programming. The work’s seven short movements are named after different commands in the C programming language. The rhythmically intense and occasionally repetitive parts can be played separately or in random order.

In the suite Rotorelief from 1998–2001, composer (and trombonist) Ivo Nilsson expresses his fascination with the artist Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray's film Anémic Cinéma (1926). The music is written for a reciter, soloist, and ensemble, and the French nonsense texts are recited while the musicians perform. Among the instruments we find not only the traditional ones, but also chess pieces, coins, and scissors.

With mezzo-soprano Emma Sventelius in mind, Ylva Fred has composed a song cycle for the anniversary, which is now being premiered. The texts are taken from poet Axel Winqvist's collection Den sista människans leende – ”The Last Human’s Smile”. "It's about a post-apocalyptic world, in which there is one person left. The texts are serious, but they also contain a lot of humour", says Ylva Fred.