Performers & composers

Karin Rehnqvist

Karin Rehnqvist (born 1957) is one of Sweden's best-known and widely performed composers. With regular performances throughout Europe, USA and Scandinavia, her range extends to chamber, orchestral, stage, and vocal music. Above all, she enjoys working with unusual, cross-genre forms and ensembles. One strong characteristic feature of her work is her exploration of the areas between art and folk music. Both elements are integral and never merely used for effect or as a nostalgic element. In particular, Rehnqvist has explored the extraordinary and dramatic vocal technique of Kulning.

Between 1976 and 1991 Karin Rehnqvist conducted and was the artistic director of the choir Stans Kör. This cemented her special affinity with vocal music and also fired her interest in experimental approaches to concert presentation.

Between 2000 and 2004 Rehnqvist was Composer in Residence with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Svenska Kammarorkestern in collaboration. For them she composed a series of works including a concerto for young clarinetist, Martin Fröst, and the much performed symphonic work, Arktis Arktis!, inspired by a polar expedition in the summer of 1999. These two works features in Rehnqvist’s latest CD on the BIS label, released to critical acclaim in May 2005.

Rehnqvist’s skill at writing for musicians of different abilities, and especially young performers, has often been praised: like the best music for young performers, her works make no artistic compromises, and challenge the musicians while recognizing realistic technical limits. Most recently her choral symphony Light of Light, which features children’s choir and symphony orchestra, was singled out for critical acclaim at its world premiere in Paris in 2004, and has enjoyed subsequent performances in the UK and Sweden.

Karin Rehnqvist has received many prizes for her music: In 1996 the Läkerol Arts Award "for her renewal of the relationship between folk music and art music". The same year she was awarded the "Spelmannen" prize by the daily newspaper Expressen, and in 1997 she received the Christ Johnson Prize for Solsången (Sun Song). In 2001 she was awarded the Kurt Atterberg Prize.

In April 2006 a major retrospective festival was held at the Stockholm concert House, presented by the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, who also commissioned a new work for the orchestra; Preludes for Large Orchestra.

Future plans include new pieces for London Sinfonietta, the Netherlands Chamber Choir and Nieuw Ensemble, Amsterdam.

On a Distant Shore (18')

Premiered in Glasgow, 6. december 2002.

  • The Dark
  • The Light
  • The Wild
  • The Singing
  • The Call

On a Distant Shore is a poem for clarinet and orchestra. It is scored for clarinet solo, two clarinets at the balcony, timpani and strings.

The piece is in five short movements or five ‘scenes’; each with a clear character named in the movement’s title: The Dark, The Light, The Wild, The Singing and The Call.