Jonas Olsson Plays Helmut Lachenmann

Doors: 15.30 Concert: 16.00 Entry fee: 150 kr Obs! Please arrive on time, no admission after the concert has started.

We are celebrating the release of the CD ‘Helmut Lachenmann Complete Piano Works’ with a concert in which pianist Jonas Olsson will perform all the piano works of legendary composer Helmut Lachenmann, who turns 90 this year!

The album will be released on Thanatosis on 28 November and will be available during the evening at a special price! This will be a rare opportunity to listen to all of Lachenmann's mind-boggling pieces (ca 80 minutes of music) performed by one of the most remarkable pianists in Sweden, on a state of the art grand piano!

Helmut Lachenmann (b. November 27, 1935 in Stuttgart) studied piano, theory and counterpoint at the Music Conservatory in Stuttgart from 1955 to 1958 and from 1958 to 1960 composition with Luigi Nono in Venice. The first public performances of his works took place at the Biennale in Venice in 1962 and at the International Summer Courses for New Music in Darmstadt. After his teaching activity at the University in Ludwigsburg, Lachenmann taught as professor for composition at the Music Conservatory in Hannover (1976–81) and in Stuttgart (1981–99). Furthermore, he managed many seminars, workshops and master classes in Germany and abroad, for example several times at the Summer Courses in Darmstadt between 1978 and 2014. In 2008, Lachenmann taught as Fromm Visiting Professor at Harvard University, Cambridge/MA. In 2010 he became a fellow of the Royal College of Music, London.

He has received numerous awards for his compositional work, for example the Ernst von Siemens Musikpreis in 1997, the Royal Philharmonic Society Award London in 2004, in 2008 the Berliner Kunstpreis as well as the Leone d’oro of the Biennale di Venezia, the BBVA Award “Frontiers of Knowledge” in 2011, the “GEMA Autorenpreis” in 2015 and for his opera The Little Match Girl the Hans Christian Andersen Award in 2016.

Lachenmann is a member of the Royal Academy of Music, Commendeur des Arts et des Lettres, honorary doctor at the Music Conservatories in Hannover, Dresden and Cologne and member of the Academies of the Arts in Berlin, Brussels, Hamburg, Leipzig, Mannheim and Munich.

Jonas Olsson studied with Hans Pålsson at the Gothenburg Academy of Music, where he made his debut in 2007 with the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra in Ravel's Concerto for the Left Hand. After a year as a fellow at the International Ensemble Modern Academy in Frankfurt he returned to Germany to study contemporary piano music at the Cologne Academy of Music with Pierre-Laurent Aimard.

Jonas Olsson has performed several times at the Lucerne Festival, as soloist in Répons and Sur Incises by Boulez conducted by the composer, as well as Messiaen’s Des canyons aux étoiles. Other notable performances include an acclaimed series of concerts with the complete Boulez piano sonatas at the 2015 Klang Festival in Copenhagen and a portrait concert with piano works by Rebecca Saunders at the 2016 Aldeburgh Festival.

Jonas' repertoire includes the most important solo works by composers such as Boulez, Stockhausen, Messiaen, Berio, Nono, Ligeti, Carter, Lachenmann, Ferneyhough and Sciarrino. Equally important is his commitment to a younger generation of composers, often in close collaboration on exploring new playing techniques. Since autumn 2016 Jonas has been employed as pianist and repetiteur at Norrlandsoperan in Umeå.*