Kristofer Svensson: Violin Works

Three works for violin by Kristofer Svensson performed by Maya Bennardo.

Förglömda toner Duk med broderi och bordets kant Anantachāritra, for violin and sustained tones

Doors open at 3pm for food (included in ticket price) Concert starts 4pm.

This event is part of a series of four intimate concerts at Yeshin Norbu Meditation Centre in Stockholm featuring original work by artists who engage in meditation practices across a variety of Buddhist traditions.

About the pieces:

The three pieces for violin performed by Maya Bennardo in this concert highlight three different ways of relating to emptiness. The first piece, ‘Förglömda toner’ (Forgotten tones), uses quiet, plain tones articulated through sparse melodic variations and suspended over contrasting, extended silences. The second piece, ‘Duk med broderi och bordets kant’ (Embroidered cloth and table’s edge), seeks instead to establish a continuum between pure tones and indeterminacy by moving between silence, hushed white noises, noiseful half-harmonics, harmonics, and simple tones. The third piece, ‘Anantachāritra’ (Boundless practice), takes a different approach and has the violin play against a sustained sound, slowly nudging different nodes to reveal the background environment as an interconnected, lyrical, resonant structure.

Kristofer Svensson //

Kristofer Svensson is a composer and kacapi musician whose work is situated in a context in which artistic, contemplative, and meditative practices merge.

By tuning intervals in Just Intonation–a characteristic feature of all their music–and focusing on the emergence of tones from indeterminacy, the aperture and transparency of sound as well as the equanimous ground of emptiness from which sounds arise are thematized.

A recording of Svensson's suite for solo kacapi, ‘Andra Segel’, was released in 2020 on the kuyin label, and a trio album, ‘For a lemon tree’, with Maya Bennardo and Erik Blennow Calälv is forthcoming on the Another Timbre label.

Svensson’s compositions have been performed by soloists and groups such as Contemporaneous, Quatuor Bozzini, andPlay, Mats Persson & Kristine Scholz, Miyama McQueen-Tokita, Norbotten NEO, the Hong Kong New Music Ensemble, and their music has been performed at festivals such as MATA (US), Frequency Festival (US), and Edition Festival for Other Music (SE). Texts gathering Svensson's thoughts on the relationship between Buddhism and music can be found on intimatingemptiness.blogspot.com

Maya Bennardo //

Maya Bennardo (she/her) is an active performer and composer living in Stockholm, Sweden. Maya is interested in opening the dialogue and blurring the boundaries between composers and performers, and is devoted to performing music of the present. She is a founding member of the violin/viola duo andPlay, described by I Care If You Listen as “enthusiastic champions for new music and collaboration.” She performs new and traditional repertoire for violin and piano with pianist Karl Larson in their Bennardo-Larson Duo, and was a member of the internationally renowned Mivos Quartet.

Maya recently released her first solo record, ‘four strings’ with music by Eva-Maria Houben and Kristofer Svensson which was released on the kuyin label, September 2022 (named as one of The Best of Contemporary Classical 2022 on Bandcamp and one of Steve Smith’s 22 for ‘22). The album is a continuation of Bennardo’s work exploring sonic fragility and temporal stasis on the violin.

Framträdanden av Maya Bennardo, Kristofer Svensson