More about the evening's program

More about the concert

The opening bars hesitate and lurch, much like a dream where one is trapped and struggling to break free. When composer Andrea Tarrodi (b. 1981) wrote Fragments of Enlightenment in 2022, she envisioned someone undergoing an inner struggle, striving for light and peace. The work is inspired by Mozart’s Symphony No. 39 and is infused with recurring quotes and fragments from the symphony. Light and peace, according to Tarrodi, are qualities often associated with Mozart’s music, and after the claustrophobic atmosphere of the opening, the music seems to shift and expand toward freedom.

Tarrodi is one of the most celebrated Swedish composers of our time. In 2020, she became the first Swedish female composer to write music for the final concert of the UK’s Last Night of the Proms.

Anders Hillborg’s (b. 1954) Cello Concerto from 2020 was nominated for the 2024 Nordic Council Music Prize, praised for its "playful relationship between parts and whole" and for the way it contrasts long, sweeping lines with volcanic musical eruptions, described as "a distillation of Nordic nature." Hillborg composed the concerto for Nicolas Altstaedt, and while the cello plays a central role, it is also a piece where the strings take center stage. The soundscape resembles glass—at once transparent, hard, and fragile—featuring fragments of both Renaissance polyphony and hymns. The listener is transported between states of serenity and chaos, drawn into a dreamlike and, at times, unsettling sonic world through the dialogue between the cello and the orchestra.

After studying counterpoint, composition, and electronic music at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm, Hillborg has worked as a composer since 1982. His output spans orchestral, choral, and chamber music, as well as film scores and pop music, with his compositions performed by orchestras worldwide. The soloist for his Cello Concerto is the acclaimed Amalie Stalheim, winner of the 2018 Royal Swedish Academy of Music’s Soloist Prize and the 2021 Norwegian Soloist Prize. That same year, she was named Rising Star of the Year by BBC Music Magazine.

The concert concludes with Time of Changes (2018) by Anna-Lena Laurin. While the first two movements have been performed on a few occasions, the third movement will receive its world premiere in this concert.

"I always compose from where I am in life, and my experiences are reflected in my music. This piece was written during a time when a long and severe illness in my family reached its peak and refused to let go," Laurin explains.

The first movement evokes a stormy sea that gradually calms into a sense of hope and possibility. The second movement oscillates between hope and despair, filled with colorful musical effects. The opening resembles a dawn, with mist rising over a small lake. It is spring—we hear fragments of birdsong: the great tit, the cuckoo, the blackbird—but also an underlying darkness. In the final movement, a mantra recurs, grippingly repeating an instrumental "we will make it."

The Musicians

Conductor: Fredrik Burstedt

After a long and successful career as a concertmaster and violinist, Fredrik Burstedt is increasingly in demand as a conductor for both orchestral and opera productions. A familiar face at Norrlandsoperan, he has worked with all the professional orchestras in Sweden as well as several in the Nordic region, including Trondheim Symphony Orchestra, the Norwegian Radio Orchestra, Kristiansand Symphony Orchestra, Odense Symphony Orchestra, and Aalborg Symphony Orchestra. Internationally, he has conducted Staatskapelle Weimar, Nürnberger Symphoniker, and I Pomeriggi Musicali in Italy.

In the opera world, Fredrik has led productions of Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen at the Gothenburg Opera, Bizet’s Carmen and Martinů’s The Greek Passion at Värmlandsoperan, Lehár’s The Merry Widow and Rossini’s Cinderella at the Royal Swedish Opera, as well as Kirke Mechem’s Tartuffe at Norrlandsoperan.

He has also conducted several world premieres, including Jonas Bolin’s Tristessa at the Royal Swedish Opera—hailed as one of the five most significant opera events worldwide—along with Silverfågeln by Mats Larsson Gothe, Kärlekskriget by Paula Malmborg Ward, and Norrmalmstorgsdramat by Albert Schnelzer.

fredrikburstedt.com

Soloist: Amalie Stalheim

Award-winning cellist Amalie Stalheim (born 1993 in Bergen) has established herself as one of the Nordic region’s leading musicians. In addition to performing the great classical cello concertos as a soloist across Europe, she has a strong commitment to contemporary music. She has collaborated with several of today’s most renowned composers, including Missy Mazzoli, Anders Hillborg, Britta Byström, Therese Ulvo, Jo David Meyer, and Jostein Stalheim. In recent years, she has premiered eight cello concertos and recorded several of them.

Amalie is a frequent soloist with the Nordic region’s top symphony orchestras, including the Oslo Philharmonic, the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Oulu Symphony Orchestra, the Iceland Symphony Orchestra, and the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, to name a few. She last performed with Norrlandsoperan’s Symphony Orchestra in 2021, when she played Haydn’s Cello Concerto. That same year, she was awarded the Norwegian Soloist Prize, and in 2018, she won the prestigious Swedish Soloist Prize. From 2018 to 2020, she was an Artist in Residence at Sveriges Radio P2.

amaliestalheim.com

Norrlandsoprerans symfoniorkester

Violin 1
Terje Skomedal, Mikko Sorri, Miguel Chamorro, Kitiara Braune, Per-Erik Andersson, Kersti Wilhelmsson, Håkan Svedell, EvaBritt Molander

Violin 2
Pontus Björk, Clara Bjerhag, Andreas Olsson, Nino Bisori, Arly Rivero, Matias Malmqvist, Orlaith McHugh, Patrik Kimmerud

Viola
Malgorzata Blaszczyk, Ester Forsberg, Åsa Hjelm, Dusica Cvijanovic, Johanne Skaansar, Fraser Keddie

Cello
Josef Alin, Åke Hedman, Kerstin Isaksson, Karin Bjurman, Kristina Tereschatov

Double Bass
Jan-Emil Kuisma, Charlotte Petersson, Frank Nesse

Flute
Ebba Wallén, Carmen Bajo Jurado

Oboe
Yui Ito, Johannes Ögren

Clarinet
Tania Villasuso Couceiro, Jonas Olsson Hakelind

Bassoon
Maria Kindell, Kari Günther

Horn
Orvar Johansson, Yerang Ko, Edna Fernandes, Anders Kjellberg

Trumpet
Malin Silbo-Ohlsson, Andreas Carlsson Walleng

Trombone
Peter Nygren, Daniel Bjerhag Hedin, Mathias Petersson

Tuba
Linus Mattsson

Timpani
Ian Piniés

Percussion
Maximiliano Polo

Piano
Mona Kontra