Trehagen
EDVARD-pris nominert!
I was thrilled that my piece The Sacredness of Trees for carillon was nominated for Norway’s prestigious EDVARD-prize, in the category Contemporary Music! What an honor! The Nordic Music Days Festival (2019 in Bodø) commissioned the piece for the festival (thanks to support from The Norwegian Composers Fund), and carillonneur Vegar Sandholdt played it each day of the festival in the tower of Bodø Cathedral in November 2019. Vegar has been invited to perform the piece also at Nordic Music Days in April 2021, in Torshavn in the Faroe Islands, how wonderful!
More info
Website rebuild!
My website is being redesigned, so the current content is minimal. Please contact me with any questions or requests.
ellen@ellenlindquist.com
10-14 October: KVAST 10-year anniversary Festival!
Much fine music to be heard in Stockholm, October 10-14 at Konserthuset, in celebration of the 10th anniversay of KVAST (Swedish women composers’ organization)!
I am honored that Göteborg’s outstanding flute quartet 40F will perform a my quartet ‘Mot blått‘ (Towards Blue) for 2 alto and 2 bass flutes, which they commissioned in 2016 (with funding from the Swedish Arts Council). The concert is Sunday 14 Oktober at 13:00 in Grünewaldsalen, also with music of four fine composers: Malin Bång, Anna Eriksson, Madeleine Isaksson and Ida Lundén. Playing in 40f: Anna Svensdotter, Ann Elkjär, Jill Widén, Åsa Karlberg.
40F flute quartet
Looking forward to the whole weekend, and looking forward to seeing some familiar faces!
Statens kunstnerstipend
I am so honored to have received a 4-year composition grant (Statens Kunstnerstipend), from Arts Council Norway! What an amazing opportunity to focus even more deeply on my work. Thank you!
Mantra, for gamelan and sinfonietta
My piece Mantra, for gamelan and sinfonietta, was released by BIS Records in October 2018!
Recorded by Trondheim Sinfonietta at Kimen Kulturhus (Stjørdal, Norway)
Kai Grinde Myrann, conductor
Espen Aalberg, gamelan
I am very pleased to share Trondheim Sinfonietta’s 20th-anniversary album with three fine composers: Toshio Hosohawa, Bent Sørensen and Kristin Norderval.
Mantra was commissioned by Espen Aalberg, and funded by Arts Council Norway (Norsk Kulturråd). This album is supported by The Norwegian Society of Composers, the Fund for Performing Musicians (FFUK) and Kimen Kulturhus.
‘Recommended’ by MusicWeb International:
“Seemingly disparate works, all enjoyable, but Lindquist’s gamelan concerto is a revelation.”
“…While all of these pieces demonstrate their composers’ capacity for imaginative instrumental colours and deserve focused, concentrated listening, I have to say that I found Ellen Lindquist’s gamelan concerto Mantra to be one of those rare experiences which offered something completely different; music of integrity and humility yet rich in adventure and daring in its ambition. In this magnificent performance by these Norwegian musicians, and in superb BIS surround sound, it completely blew me away.”
—Richard Hanlon (read full review)
CD Review from Expresso (Portugal’s leading weekly newspaper):
“…Ellen Lindquist’s “Mantra” feels practically restorative: scored for gamelan, and thirteen exquisitely (re)tuned instruments, the work is a marvelous showcase of ingenuity and sensitivity, without any superfluous bric-a-brac and cheap, thrift store chinoiserie. It has a very charming, ecumenical innocence and the sort of spontaneity someone like Steiner would refer to as extraterritorial – built with concentric, ethereal patterns, albeit spectacularly telluric, a geologist would describe it as a beautiful Liesegang ring made of soluble salts. Actually, it sounds as the very salt of life.” (translated from the Portuguese)
—João Santos
Here is a short film about the project made by Alice Winnberg, followed by a short documentary made for NTNU Institute for Music by Martin Kristoffersen:
https://musikk.hf.ntnu.no/2018/10/05/dokumentar-om-mantra/
Program Notes (by Nick Breckenfield, from BIS CD booklet):
Mantra has a title that in itself indicates its eastern
inspiration, specifically the unique sound-world of Indonesia’s gamelan orchestra,
with its constituent parts of not only a series of distinctive chiming instruments
(metallophones, xylophones, gongs etc.), but also bowed, plucked instruments and
drums, which dates back to the Indonesian Majapahit Empire (1293–c. 1500).
Anyone who has experienced a traditional all-night Indonesian shadow-puppet
show, a wayang kulit, will testify to the mesmeric quality of the repetitive music.
Mantra (2016) was jointly commissioned by the performers on this world pre –
mière recording, the percussionist and gamelan player Espen Aalberg and the
Trondheim Sinfonietta, with support from Arts Council Norway. It was first per –
formed at the Trondheim Open festival on 11th November 2016. Having made par –
ticular study of the overtone sequences of the Indonesian instru ments, Lindquist
has retuned the Sinfonietta’s instruments to chime (forgive the pun) with those of
the gamelan. Over an extended soundscape and at an almost-exclusively slow
tempo, Mantra subtly revels in ever-changing intonation, con juring almost a fourth
dimension that seems to stretch back in time.
Lindquist explains: ‘In traditional Indonesian gamelan music, it was believed
that the soul of the entire gamelan was found in the gong ageng, the lowest (and
usually largest) of the hanging gongs, which was said to be used to summon the
gods. More complex messages could be sent with the gamelan’s other hanging
gongs. Mantra was inspired by this concept, and the piece was built using spectral
analysis of the six large hanging gongs in the instrument collection. The soloist in
Mantra plays many different gamelan instruments, and some material for the piece
was developed in an improvisation-based process.
‘The word mantra comes originally from Sanskrit; a simple idea (a word, sound
or phrase) repeated over and over, used to enter a meditative state, the very repeti –
tion aiding concentration. In Mantra this concept exists fractally on several different
overlapping layers of time, manifesting as everything from a single event, to a short
phrase, to the solo gong melody stretched over the length of the piece.’
Lindquist’s score looks deceptively standard: single winds – although unusually
it is the low wind instruments (cor anglais, bass clarinet and double bassoon) that
join the flute – with horn, trumpet, trombone, harp and strings, in addition to the
gamelan player. Despite the visual cornucopia of actual instruments, the gamelan
is notated often on a single stave, occasionally two, with a written indication as to
which instrument – gangsa, Balinese reyong, Javanese reyong, siter, gong ageng
etc. – while the ensemble’s instrumental parts are suffused with pitch instructions
to match the gamelan.
As indicated by the devotional title, this is a 25-minute reverential hymn full of
subtle teeming detail and delicate instrumental partnerships, set off by the harp and
gamelan, out of which develops an important recurring quaver motif, beginning
and ending with a dotted quaver, as if the repeated mantra of the title. The medi –
tation is glacially slow, but more important is the opening instruction: ‘Still, ex –
pectant,’ as if the message is that we need to give ourselves the occasional elongated
time span to think calmly. The interaction between eastern and western instruments,
both unusual and also timeless, encourages us to do just that: to breathe deeply and
lose ourselves in an other-worldly soundscape to assuage the travails of the modern
world.
Upcoming solo piece for Michael Francis Duch
Looking forward to beginning work on a new solo piece for contrabassist Michael Francis Duch!
Funded by Komponistenes vederlagsfond.
Recording with MSR Classical Records
By the end of 2018, Mariana Gariazzo‘s debut CD Revelations will be released by MCR Classics. The album consists of contemporary, unaccompanied music for alto and bass flute, including my piece Nakoda.
Recording of Nakoda with Redshift Records
I’m very pleased to announce that flutist Mark Takeshi McGregor will record my amplified alto flute piece Nakoda on Redshift Records in 2017. He’ll also perform it on Redshift Music Society concerts in Vancouver, Canada. Looking forward!
New Oboe Music Project
I was very pleased that the New Oboe Music Project chose to feature my music recently.
“This month’s featured composer is one who has written particularly striking and beautiful music for the oboe. It was in 2007 that I heard Ellen’s piece Zosa performed by Laura Karney in Germany. I was immediately struck by how very well she had made use of multiphonics and techniques such as having the oboe play into the piano. Ellen really understood the instrument very well and has composed works that are very strong additions to the repertoire.”
Many Thousand Gone
solo piece for cello and voice (single player)
Commissioned by Marianne Baudouin Lie for solo cello and voice (one player), Many Thousand Gone draws inspiration from on an old African-American folk song of the same name. Premiered in February 2017, Many Thousand Gone expresses my reaction to the ongoing refugee crisis.
This ‘story’, told with music and fragments of folksongs, is based on the enormous diversity of stories which I have learned from refugee friends, and read in the media. Those of us who have grown up in relatively peaceful countries cannot truly understand what it means to have to flee from one’s homeland. The closest I have come to understanding comes from my deep empathetic response — having a young child myself — to mothers who have fled with infants and young children. What must it be like to undertake such a journey while also doing your best to care for your children? I cannot imagine. This ‘story’ for cello and voice is told from the perspective of a mother, remembering. Fragments of two folksongs, one American and one Norwegian, are woven into the piece: ‘Many Thousand Gone’ is an American slave spiritual from the mid-1800s, and ‘Vi har ei tulle’ by Margrethe Munthe about absolute love for one’s child…something which is the same across all cultures.
Funded by The Norwegian Composers Fund (Det Norsk Komponistfondet).
Many Thousand Gone (a few verses)
…No more slavery chains for me | No more, no more
No more slavery chains for me | Many thousand gone
No more children stole from me | No more, no more
No more children stole from me | Many thousand gone…
Vi har ei tulle (first verse)
Vi har ei tulle med øyne blå, | med silkehår og med ører små
Og midt i fjeset en liten nese | -så stor som så….
Mot blått (Toward Blue)
for flute quartet (2 alto flutes, 2 bass flutes)
Listen: Mot blått (Toward Blue)
Recorded at Studio Epidemin, Gothenburg, May 2017
(40f: Ann Elkjär, Jill Widén, Bjørnar Habbestad, Anna Svensdotter)
Mot blått
I am fascinated by the use of color in weaver Hannah Ryggen’s works: both the colors themselves, and what Ryggen so eloquently expresses through her use of them. The colors have a life of their own: the intensity, richness, and subtle variation within each, the fact that Hannah dyed her wool and linen using only dyes made from natural materials (many of which she harvested and prepared herself), the extensive experimentation that went into developing her colors (especially her famous blues). However, I am perhaps most fascinated by that which she chooses to express, and how she expresses it using those colors. Ryggen uses her carefully crafted colors to express her responses to events in the world around her. She weaves about her immediate surroundings, yes: the Ørland lanscape, her family, the animals on their farm. Many of her strongest works, though, are pieces in which she weaves her responses to and opinions about critical issues in a world far from Ørland.
Deeply inspired by Hannah Ryggen’s work, my new quartet for 40f has emerged from my reflections on Ryggen’s oeuvre as a whole. I have crafted my ‘sound-colors’ with care, and woven them to express my reaction to three deeply entangled and troubling current issues in the United States: systemic racial inequality, gun violence, and police brutality based on racial profiling. I can site far too many specific examples of each. However, in Mot blått (Toward Blue), I choose to call attention to the depth and complexity of these problems, and to express my belief that a new way of interacting can evolve — is evolving — based on respect, love and non-violence.
Mot blått (Toward Blue) was premiered by flute quartet 40f on 18 November 2016 at Dokkhuset in Trondheim, as part of both the Trondheim Documentary Festival and The Hannah Ryggen Triennalen (Nordenfjeldske Kunstindustrimuseum).
Mot blått was funded by the Swedish Arts Council (Kulturrådet).
Alpaca Ensemble spiller Ellen Lindquist: nattkonsert på Trefestivalen i Trondheim
Torsdag 25. september • kl. 22.30
Gulbrygga, 27 Kjøpmannsgata • Trondheim, Norge
Under Holzbau Nordic konferansen presenterer Trondheim kommune og Trefestivalen Trondheims Alpaca Ensemble, som spiller en spesiell nattkonsert som avslutning av Trefestivalen.
På programmet er flere av solo- og kammerverkene mine for en trio av treinstrumenter…cello, klarinett og marimba. Konserten finnes sted i Gulbrygga, en av de fine gamle trebryggene ved Nidelven. Velkommen!
Alpaca Ensemble
Marianne Baudouin Lie • cello
Rik de Geyter • klarinett
Anders Kristiansen • marimba
Biljetter ved inngangen: 100 nok
English:
The Holzbau Nordic Wood Building Conference and the city of Trondheim present Trondheim’s Alpaca Ensemble, who will play a special night concert as the closing event for the Wood Festival. On the program are solo and chamber works by American composer Ellen Lindquist (living in Norway) for a trio of wooden instruments…cello, clarinet and marimba. The concert will take place in Gulbrygga, one of the beautiful old wooden warehouse buildings downtown along the Nidelven river. Welcome!
Vlaams Sinfonietta premieres ‘Folk Songs’ on October 3
Vlaams Sinfonietta with Olga Romanko, soprano
Raf de Keninck, conductor
The Vlaams Sinfonietta has commissioned me and 4 other composers to compose new pieces based on folk songs from our respective countries. The project is inspired by Luciano’s 1964 piece titled ‘Folk Songs’, a cycle of 11 songs based on folk songs from different countries, which will also be on the program. Premiere on October 3. More information here.
Vlaams Sinfonietta o.l.v. Raf De Keninck
M.m.v. Olga Romanko, sopraan
In 1964 schreef Luciano Berio zijn “Folk Songs”: een cyclus van elf liederen, deels bestaande volksliederen die in een eigentijds ritmisch en harmonisch jasje gestoken werden, deels nieuwe composities, geïnspireerd op volksmuziek uit Sardinië, Armenië, de USA,…
Een zevenkoppig ensemble becommentarieert de melodie van de mezzo-sopraan.
Vlaams Sinfonietta trekt dit idee open naar de multiculturele realiteit van onze samenleving. Componisten uit de landen van herkomst van veel van onze “nieuwe Belgen” gaan aan de slag met volksliederen uit het land waar hun roots liggen: Nederland, Griekenland, Koerdistan, USA, Turkije.
Alpaca Ensemble Plays Ellen Lindquist
Friday 4 april • 1 p.m. • Rein kirke • Rissa • Norge: Opening of KULMIN
Saturday 26 april • 3 p.m. • Huskonsert i Rissa more information
Sunday 27 april • 1 p.m. • Ilen kirke • Trondheim more information
Flute quartet for 40F
I’m looking forward to a brand-new project for flute quartet with Göteborg’s fantastic 40F! Premiere will be in 2016…will post more info as it comes.
Birds
Photo by Hans Falklind
Cecilia Ekmark commissioned me (thanks to generous funding from Statensmusikverk) to write a new piece for flute(s) and piano (Roger Johansson), inspired both by Hans Falklind‘s bird photographs and birdsong, for her ongoing project called Birds. This project is also supported by Sveriges ornitologiska förening (SOF) and BirdLife International. We met twice in Göteborg to develop material through improvisation, which I have now used as raw material to create the piece. Tomas Tranströmer’s early poem ‘Preludium’ is woven throughout the piece, which is titled ‘Vingarna breddas’ (‘The Wings Spread’). The project premiered 26 May 2013 in Gothenburg’s 3.e Våningen.
drömseminarium (dreamseminar)
Félix Pastor and Michael Douglas Jones, Västerås Konserthus, Sweden. Photo by by Henny Linn Kjellberg.
drömseminarium / dream seminar is a new piece of music-theater based on the texts of contemporary Swedish poet Tomas Tranströmer and music of American composer Ellen Lindquist, produced by Companion Star, and developed collaboratively by an international company of musicians and artists.
drömseminarium creates an environment in which the spaces between the real and unreal elements of life are bridged, an important theme that appears throughout Tranströmer’s work. It is bilingual, mixing Tranströmer’s original Swedish with English translations (Robin Fulton). The cast of drömseminariumincludes two singer/actors and twelve instrumentalist/actors. A highly unique aspect of the piece is that all players, instrumentalists and singers alike, are characters in the piece, and also movers (with coaching from Swedish choreographer Helena Högberg). Set design by ceramic artist Henny Linn Kjellberg is a central element of the piece. Costume design is by Camille Assaf, and lighting design by Torkel Skjærven. Directed by Patrick Diamond. drömseminarium is a large-scale work, roughly 75 minutes in length, and is slated to premiere in September 2014 in Sweden.
Watch a video about the making of drömseminarium
Listen to music from drömseminarium:
Längre in:
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Romanska Bågar:
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Listen to an interview with Ellen about drömseminarium:
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Resources:
Skogensemble
Skogensemble is an international ensemble of musicians dedicated to the performance of contemporary classical music by composers from Nordic countries and from composers whose heritage is bound to those cultures. Skogen, which has its roots in Icelandic and Old Norse, is a Scandinavian word meaning “the forest”.
Porcelain Percussion
A research project carried out during a collaborative residency with ceramic artist Henny Linn Kjellberg (Sweden) and percussionist Birgit Løkke (Denmark) at the International Ceramic Research Center in Skælskør, Denmark. Read more »
The Zoco Duo
I am writing a new piece for the Zoco Duo (Barcelona, Spain):
Laura Karney, oboe and English horn
Jacob Cordover, guitar
The Musicians’ Alliance for Peace
The Musicians’ Alliance for Peace (MAP) existed from 2001-2007 as an active group of musicians concerned with the role that music can play in creating momentum towards a more peaceful world. Read more »
