Two first performances by Jörgen Dafgård at Stöde Musikvecka 2012
10 april 2012
Jörgen Dafgård’s Snösmältning for piano will be premiered at Stöde Musikvecka by Lars Jönsson at the festival’s opening concert on July 23 2012 at 7:00 p.m. in the church of Stöde. The festival has also commissioned a new work by Jörgen Dafgård, namely a Clarinet Quintet, which will be premiered at the festival’s final concert on July 28 2012 at 7:00 p.m. in the church of Stöde. The first performance will be made by an international elite ensemble consisting of the clarinetist Sebastian Manz, the violinists David Schultheiss and Janis Olsson, the alto violinist Wen Xiao Zheng and the cellist Kateryna Giannisiotis.
Homepage updated and redesigned
3 January 2012
The homepage is now updated with new sound files, pictures and texts. It has also been redesigned, by Emilie Dafgård. Furthermore, it is now possible to comment the news. Welcome to have a look around!
For the Sleeping with Sara Munters
26 October 2011
Tonight Jörgen Dafgård’s For the Sleeping – Dream Sonata for viola and electronics is played live at club Ambush in Stockholm, with Sara Munters on viola. Earlier this year Sara Munters also performed For the Sleeping on a concert at the Royal College of Music in February, as well as on her graduation concert at Edsberg on May 25. For the Sleeping has now been performed on at least eleven concerts i Sweden, and has also recently been in demand by for example Scottish and Norwegian musicians.
Mahler Revisited back on Composer’s Radio
9 October 2011
From the new CD, Jörgen Dafgård’s Mahler Revisited is back this week on Composer’s Radio.
Esprit – new work for 11 instruments completed
9 August 2011
Esprit, the commission from The Nordic Chamber Ensemble, is now completed. The work has a duration of around 24 minutes and contains fast music throughout. It is written in one movement but is structured in several continuous but contrasting sections and can formally be described as a sinfonietta. There is a dramaturgical thread running through the whole work. It starts playfully, but gradually the course of events gets more and more adventurous and filled with excitement and drama, to finally reach a euforic ending. The rhytmic and gestural movement is a key element in the work and has on the whole a lively and impulsive character which supports both the playfulness and the thrill. Esprit will be premiered by The Nordic Chamber Ensemble later this season (no details are known yet). The work will be published by Gehrmans.
More music by Jörgen Dafgård on Composer’ Radio
12 June 2011
Jörgen Dafgård’s Mahler Revisited, which has newly been released on CD in a recording with The Peärls Before Swïne Experience, can now be heard on Composer’s Radio, which is The Society of Swedish Composers’ web radio.
At the end of May the CD recording of Jörgen Dafgård’s String Quartet I by The Aniara Quartet was also once again broadcasted by Composer’s Radio. Henrik Frendin’s CD recording of Dafgård’s For the Sleeping - Dream Sonata for viola and electronics has also recently been broadcasted by Composer’s Radio.
Mahler Revisited on CD
19 May 2011
Jörgen Dafgård’s composition Mahler Revisited from 2010 is now available on CD in a recording with the well-renowned ensemble The Peärls Before Swïne Experience. “Communication - Perspectives 2002 - 10” is the title of the CD which is published by Chamber Sound and features music by different composers. Mahler Revisited was commissioned by the leading Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter and is a free recomposition of material from the second movement from Gustav Mahler’s fifth symphony.
Through Fire and Water – new score published by Gehrmans
16 May 2011
The score to Jörgen Dafgård’s well-received work Through Fire and Water for large orchestra is now available through the publisher Gehrmans. It is an optimized score with carefully designed notation and good readability. It has also been updated somewhat in connection with the first performance.
Through Fire and Water on Swedish Radio P2 and more
6 April 2011
The concert featuring the first performance of Jörgen Dafgård’s Through Fire and Water for large orchestra can be heard in its entirety on Swedish Radio P2 on Thursday April 7, at 7:30 p.m. Through Fire and Water, which comes as the third work in the concert, will be heard around 50 minutes into the broadcasting.
On the same day at 10:48 a.m. P2 is also airing Jörgen Dafgård’s String Quartet I, as it sound in a recording with the Aniara Quartet released on CD.
After the broadcastings the programs can be listened to again for a month on Swedish Radio’s web radio. They can be found in “Sändningsarkiv” under P2 Live Klassiskt and Klassisk Förmiddag on the P2 section of Swedish Radio’s homepage.
String Quartet I can also be heard on the Society of Swedish Composers’ web radio Composer’s Radio, as the starting work of this year’s first new show. One of last year’s shows also featured Henrik Frendin’s CD recording of Jörgen Dafgård’s For the Sleeping - Dream Sonata for viola and pre-recorded part.
Praise after the first performance of Through Fire and Water
20 February 2011
On Thursday February 17 Malmö Symphony Orchestra premiered Jörgen Dafgårds newly written Through Fire and Water for large orchestra under the direction of Daniel Raiskin. The premiere was very successful and led to much positive response from the audience, from the musicians and from the press.
“New Smash Hit from Jörgen Dafgård” was the headline on Lars-Erik Larsson’s review in Skånska Dagbladet, where he writes: “It is a work with a clear and interresting melodic writing, intelligently cultivated with a clear line and skilful if heavy orchestration. From the impressionism in Mosaïque Vibrante Jörgen Dafgård has now travelled towards a forceful expressionism that almost takes the breath out of the listener. Like many of Jörgen Dafgård’s earlier compositions Through Fire and Water will with all probability take place on the standard repertoire of contemporary Swedish orchestral music.”
“Yesterday I don’t think anybody was disappointed… This was absolutely no one-off work.” Ulf R Johansson writes in Kvällsposten under the headline “Dafgård’s successful baptism”. “Promising, not least because Dafgård works with the orchestra, not against it” Matti Edén writes in Sydsvenskan. “Through Fire and Water is yet another work that whets the appetite” Johanna Paulsson from Dagens Nyheter writes in her review “Ordeal Whets the Appetite”. More extensive excerpts from the reviews can be found among the concert reviews under the heading Press.
Through Fire and Water soon to be premiered
14 February 2011
Jörgen Dafgård’s new work Through Fire and Water for large orchestra will be premiered by the Malmö Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Daniel Raiskin on Thursday, February 17, at 7:30 p.m. at the Malmö Concert Hall. The concert will be recorded by the Swedish Radio for broadcasting on P2 at a later occasion.
Jörgen Dafgård has here been working a lot with musical characterization and the work can be described as a story about development. The optimistic theme that the clarinet presents rather early has a lot of energy but also something naive about it. It is put to a serious test in a section that depicts the title word Fire, but after having come in contact with a complementary element – Water – it finds its way back and is born again with greater maturity and assurance. This constitutes a musical storyline that probably most people can relate to.
The title also alludes to the antique theory that the world is constructed from four elements: earth, air, fire and water. The developmental process that is depicted in the work can be likened to the process of refinement that the alchemists strived for (in their quest for gold) and where the four fundamental elements of antiquity have important roles.
Veils to be performed again at Berwaldhallen on October 14 and 15 2010
7 October 2010
Jörgen Dafgård’s prize-winning work Veils (Slöjor) will be performed by the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Xian Zhang at Berwaldhallen in Stockholm on Thursday, October 14, at 6:00 p.m. and on Friday, October 15, at 7:30 p.m. The program also includes Beethoven’s Piano Concerto Nr 3 and with Lars Vogt and Elgar’s Enigma Variations. The concert on Friday will be broadcast live on Swedish Radio P2 and can be heard again on P2 on Sunday, October 24, at 9:30 p.m.
Veils has been played before at Berwaldhallen, on April 7 and 8 2000, when the work had its first performance as the winning contribution in the composition competition of the Swedish Radio and Berwaldhallen. The first performance was broadcast in many countries around the world. In 2003. several millions of readio listeners could hear Veils broadcast by the British Classic FM and the American NPR, when Veils among a thousand contributions reached the top ten in the world’s leading composition competition Masterprize.
SInce its first performance Veils has been played a lot by leading Swedish orchestras, most recently at two concerts in May 2008 by the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Sakari Oramo. At Berwaldhallen Veils will now have its eighth and ninth concert performance. After the concert on Thursday there will be a release party in the foyer of Berwaldhallen for a CD with music from the series of remixes of classical masterpieces recently published on leading Swedish news site dn.se, to which Jörgen Dafgård has contributed with Mahler Revisited, a recomposition of the second movement from Gustav Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, performed by the quartet The Peärls Before Swine Experience.
