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The Person
Jan Sandström is among the most frequently
performed Swedish composers on the international scene today.The Motorbike
Concerto for trombone and orchestra (1988–89) is one of the most spread
Swedish orchestral work of all times, with over 300 performances to its credit
since its premiere in 1989. Sandström's catalogue includes music for various
ensembles, for choir, opera, ballet and for radio theatre - but above all for
orchestra, with or without soloist. The second trombone concerto, Don
Quixote (1994) likewise written for Christian Lindberg, and the two
trumpet concertos (1987 and 1992/96) for Håkan Hardenberger are also widely
performed.
Sandström was born in Vilhelmina in Lapland on 25 January 1954 and grew up in Stockholm. He began his university education by studying counterpoint in Stockholm (with Valdemar Söderblom) and then went north, to the top of the Gulf of Bothnia, studying at the Technological University in Luleå, Piteå School of Music from 1974 to 1976. He completed his training back at the Royal Academy of Music in Stockholm, studying music theory (1978–82) and composition with Gunnar Bucht, Brian Ferneyhough and Pär Lindgren (1980–84). In 1982 he was asked to join the the developing of new music of the young and expanding University school of music in Piteå. So he returned there teaching composition and music theory (1985–89), and after a year out, in Paris (1984-85); he was appointed professor of composition at the university 1989.
Sandström began his musical career as a
chorister, and his work list includes a large part of vocal, opera and choral
music . His other widespread international success Det är en ros utsprungen
(Es ist ein Ros) (1990), is one of his most devout works. His choral music
underlines the catholicity and seems to form a link with an inner, gentle world,
the emotional abstract.
Sandstrom often deals with the naive, ordinary
feelings, ordinary people, the misunderstood hero. A critic once wrote that he
composes “music that pats you on the hand and says ‘there, there, it’ll be all
right’”
Different lines of composing co-exists in Sandström’s music. Minimalism, Eastern philosophy as well as the world of serialism were early influences on his music. For many years Sandström also worked at developing the form of overtone harmony that is known as spectral analysis. In more music theatrical pieces as Don Quixote and the opera Macbeth2 (premiered at the GothenburgOpera in spring 2001), he means to let the whole world outside in on stage. As pictured in the Motorbike Concerto, Sandström and his music is constantly on the move aiming to explore whatever aspect of life and music takes his fancy: ‘Every morning when I wake up, I want to be surprised by whatever I might think up today!’