International Composer Festival with Betsy Jolas

In her Paris circle were figures such as James Joyce, Henri Matisse and Ernest Hemingway. Now the French-American composer is presented in the Composer Festival with orchestral and chamber music – including a world premiere.

Betsy Jolas studied composition in Paris in the 1940s. At the festival opening with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra and Ryan Bancroft, trumpeter Håkan Hardenberger also appears, having worked closely with Jolas. “She has dined with Stravinsky and studied with Milhaud, served as assistant to and succeeded Messiaen …”, Hardenberger remarked a few years ago, noting that she is part of modern music history.

For the Composer Festival, Betsy Jolas has chosen to place her own music in dialogue with that of others – like a conversation with history and with composers she has, in some cases, known as colleagues. The carefully curated and finely balanced programmes therefore also include music by Maurice Ravel and Albert Roussel, Dmitri Shostakovich, Tōru Takemitsu and Witold Lutosławski – and, of course, Olivier Messiaen.

Read the portrait article on Betsy Jolas in Lyssna magazine (in Swedish)