This year’s International Composer Festival is dedicated to the Swedish-Dutch composer Klas Torstensson.
Klas Torstensson’s music is powerful, with volcanic eruptions and, at times, a kind of hammering energy. But ever since his 1999 opera Expeditionen, a more lyrical, almost bleeding emotionality has begun to emerge. Torstensson’s music moves between extremes.
Born in Sweden in 1951, Klas Torstensson has lived in the Netherlands for more than fifty years – he moved there in 1973. An internationally acclaimed composer, the festival focuses primarily on his output from the past two decades, though music from the early 1970s is also featured. The result is a broad retrospective.
The Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra opens the festival, and, as is tradition, the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra also makes a guest appearance. Besides his own works, Torstensson has chosen to include music by Johann Sebastian Bach/Anton Webern and by Charles Ives – works that meant a great deal to him as a young man dreaming of becoming a composer.
The festival takes place at Konserthuset Stockholm, one of Stockholm’s most recognisable buildings and home to the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra. The blue Konserthuset Stockholm at Hötorget is one of Stockholm’s most recognisable buildings and venue for several prominent award ceremonies, such as the Nobel Prize Award Ceremony. Built in 1926, the leading artists of the era were commissioned to conceive the new concert hall in a timeless style, harnessing motifs from two different worlds: classical Greece and the history of music.
The closest airports to Stockholm are Arlanda Airport and Bromma Airport. Shuttle buses or express trains operate to central Stockholm. You can also arrive to Stockholm via train to Stockholm Central, then a 10 minute-walk to Hötorget.
There is a wide variety of hotels in and around Stockholm. The nearest hotels are Haymarket by Scandic, which is located right opposite Konserthuset Stockholm at Hötorget; Scandic Grand Central and Miss Clara Hotel.
There are one restaurant and several bars in Konserthuset Stockholm which serve a number of classic Swedish dishes, snacks, pastries, drinks and much more.
