Ensembles

Seth Starre Lacotte

Skogen is a Swedish ensemble working at an intersection between contemporary chamber music and improvisation. The ensemble was founded in 2005 and has since its inception collaborated regularly with international artists such as Angharad Davies, Ko Ishikawa, Toshimaru Nakamura, Rhodri Davies and Simon Allen. The ensemble has mainly been performing music by its founder Magnus Granberg, but has also performed and recorded music by composers such as Anders Dahl and Morgan Evans-Weiler.

The music, which originates from the interplay between composition and improvisation and between individual and collective processes, is a poetical practice which in subtle and seemingly paradoxical ways unifies order with chaos, unity with diversity and the past with the present.

The ensemble has released seven CDs on the renowned British record label Another Timbre and has performed at festivals such as Ultima (NO), Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival (UK), Himera (FI), Sound of Stockholm (SE), Splitter Music Festival (DE) and Ulrichsberger Kaleidophon (AT).

Personnel (various settings and sizes):

Eva Lindal (violin, Anna Lindal (violin) Angharad Davies (violin) Leo Svensson Sander (cello), Stina Hellberg Agback (harp), Rhodri Davies (harp), Magnus Granberg (prepared piano), John Eriksson (vibraphone and percussion) Simon Allen (vibraphone and percussion) Erik Carlsson (percussion), Henrik Olsson (percussion and electronics), Petter Wästberg (electronics and objects), Ko Ishikawa (sho), Toshimaru Nakamura (no-input mixing board) and Heather Roche (clarinet).

Nattens inbrott (The Break of Night) is an ensemble whose music is situated between stillness and unrest, between the wild and the cultivated, between the composed and the improvised. The ensemble consists of Norwegian musicians Vilde Sandve Alnaes (violin) and Inga Margrete Aas (double bass), Swedish percussionist Erik Carlsson and pianist and composer Magnus Granberg.

The members are all active in ensembles such as Vilde & Inga and Skogen and have during the past decade collaborated with musicians, ensembles and composers such as Jennifer Walshe, Jesse Marino, Christian Wallumrød, Jürg Frey, Nate Wooley, Toshimaru Nakamura, Ko Ishikawa, Rhodri Davies, Sidsel Endresen, Apartment House and Splitter Orchester. The members of the ensemble have performed in Europe, Asia and the US at festivals and venues such as Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival (UK), Ultima (NO), Cafe OTO (UK), Edition Festival (SE), Non-Event (US), Bowerbird Foundation (US), Ftarri Music Festival (JP), MaerzMusik (DE), Borealis (NO), Splitter Music Festival (DE) and Kongsberg Jazz Festival (NO).

The debut album of Nattens inbrott, Holde Träume, kehret wieder!, was published by British record label Another Timbre in June 2024.

Det sista ljuset (The Last Light) is a newly formed quartet performing the music of Magnus Granberg. A collaboration with American trumpet player Nate Wooley is planned for November 2025.