Swedish Music Spring – Cantus Ansambl

As part of the Swedish Music Spring festival, the Croatian Cantus Ansambl makes a guest appearance with music that moves between stillness and intensity. Founded in 2001, Cantus Ansambl specialises in contemporary art music. Over the years, the ensemble has given well over 100 world premieres and is a key player in the genre in Croatia, while also appearing on stages around the world.

The programme features both Croatian and Swedish music, including the Swedish premiere of Ivo Nilsson’s Seven Positions and the world premiere of a new work by Berislav Šipuš – a composer and conductor who has also served as Croatia’s Minister of Culture. Ivo Nilsson also appears as trombone soloist.

In the opening work, Karin Rehnqvist’s Night Chant, light emerges from darkness and stillness, unfolding with an almost hymn-like melody. Jacob Mühlrad’s Silent Prayer establishes a ceremonial atmosphere, with the bassoon as “preacher”. In a series of works entitled Chiral, Kent Olofsson has explored mirroring relationships between soloist and ensemble, or with electronics; here we hear Chiral IV.

The Croatian composers Davor Vincze and Helena Skljarov both explore, in different ways, dramatic tensions between contrasting modes of expression – for example, between the digital and the human, and between sound and image.