Staerns spellista Tonsättareseminarie

Dedicated to Maestro Stefan Solyom. The word Jubilate has its standing point in the phenomenon of spectators cheering with an inner power of joy and the experience to be part of the powerful jubilation. Its counterpart; to boo out and causing a riot like crazy hooligans that are sabotizing the festivities in which can end into total destruction. These roles are present in today’s society on big events, mainly in sports and culture. Musically it is translated into two antithesis: tonal versus atonal, loud versus soft, organic to mechanic and so on. These developments break and dissolve during the course of the work that are uniting towards the end. Stefan Solyom, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, City Halls, Glasgow 2010-02-25 UK PREMIERE

Published by Gehrmans Musikförlag, Stockholm AB.

Jubilate - prelude for symphony orchestra

It begins with a reversed ’big-bang’ chord and suddenly the wandering begins between the high and low ”coloured” brass instruments. The harmony is distorted by micro-tones and feels like looking through broken glass.

Colour Wandering

year of production 2008/2013

dedicated to my mother Harriet Staern Cronström;

commissioned by Helsingborgs Symphony Orchestra

awards recommended works among top-ten composers of 
International Rostrum of Composers 2014

duration 30‘ 

first performance 
April 6th 2014
Anna Larsson, alto
Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra
Stefan Solyom, conductor

Kunde jag följa dig långt bort,
längre än allt du vet,
ut i de yttersta rymdernas
världsensamhet,
där Vintergatan rullar
ett bjärt dött skum
och där du söker ett fäste
i hisnande rum.

Jag vet: det går inte.

Men när du stiger huttrande
blind ur ditt dop,
tvärsigenom rymden
skall jag höra ditt rop,
vara dig ny värme,
vara dig ny famn,
vara dig när i en annan värld
bland ting med ofött namn

Sånger om bländvit kärlek: 2 Kunde Jag Följa Dig

Mats Rondin; Huaröds kammarorkester

Live October 5 2002, Sigmahuset, Malmö
Music Around 2002

Muramaris Live oktober 2002

Recorded live from De Spil, Roeselare, Belgium with Jeroen Berwaerts and Stockholm Chamber Brass.

This piece was commissioned by Rikskonserter for Håkan Hardenberger and Stockholm Chamber Brass that was first-performed in Båstad Chamber Music Festival 2007. It's all about confrontations of different sorts; arguments, clashes, pushing things headlong to the edge that drives you into insane moments in life and also on the web. The soloists sends messages to the brass quintet in which responds in different manners during the piece and is divided into three movements without a break inbetween. 

Confrontation For Solo Trumpet And Brass Quintet - Live from De Spil, Roeselare Belgium

I wanted for a long time to write music that is danceable and can in many ways be physically received when listening to it. Godai means " the five great elements " in Japanese and has a background in Japanese philosophy about martial arts and is a Buddhist term with some influences from Hinduism. The Buddhist philosophy is perhaps best known in the West for their use by the samurai Miyamoto Musashi's famous text, The Book of Five Rings, which he explains different aspects of swordsmanship and martial arts by assigning every aspect of each element. The different properties are interconnected and also to keep the balance between these elements. The five elements are formed on the basis of the well-known basic elements: earth, water, fire , air, and the fifth element is a shadow , ie . the sum of all elements into one unit . The . In the instrumentation included except triple woodwind, brass, strings, harp, celesta, piano and percussion, bass drum, snare drum, cymbals, glockenspiel, tubular bells, gong, xylophone, marimba for more Asian instruments like i.e. opera-gongs, java gongs, china cymbal, temple bowls and crotales (antique cymbals).
The work is divided into four movements, performed without interruption. 
 
Recorded and broadcasted live on Swedish Radio P2.
15 May 2014
Malmö Konserthuset
Marc Soustrot
Malmö Symphony Orchestra

Godai Sats 1 Excerpt

In Sacrificio (sacrifice) the solo tuba is the sacrifice which performs a ritual that goes from noise to pitch while the orchestra goes in opposite direction, from pitch to noise. The electronic sounds provide a link between the soloist and the orchestra. The work is built around a formula played by the tuba in the introduction where the playing instructions says ”quasi cantus firmus” (almost plain chant). What differs from an ordinary cantus firmus (rhythmically simple and ascetic melodic line) is that it is more expressive and dynamic, which in turn generates material that is further processed in the concerto. 
Sacrificio is divided in three parts with two separate solo cadenzas in between; the first with electronic sounds and the second without. 

Dedicated to Luca Francesconi, Kjetil Myklebust.

Live recording from the world premiere Konserthuset Malmö 6 september 2005.

First performance
Kjetil Myklebust, tuba
composer, electronics
Malmö Symphony Orchestra
Tuomas Olilla-Hannikainen

Sacrificio Uruppf. 6 sept Malmö

Snödrottningen Prologaria 

Susanna Stern, Snödrottningen
Malmö Operaorkester
Christoffer Nobin, dir.

25 maj 2016 Malmö Opera

Snödrottningen - Prologaria

work comments

Winner of the Swedish Music Publishers Association (SMFF) Award in the category "Contemporary Award of the Year” - chamber musc/smaller ensemble 2017.

Over a period of years 2013-14, I wrote music for the Gesamtkunstwerk Saiyah that was performed at the Norrland Opera during the MADE Festival. The work focused on the neurological condition of synaesthesia in which an interconnection in the brain between the two senses. Concretely, it means that a person hears music also see it, for example in the form of different colors.

In there was a section for guitar and ensemble I decided to do a concert piece in five movements as a "wordless song cycle without words" and described as follows:

1. Air - peace and quiet with small pedal tones from the glasses and guitar shapes an aria-like line while the ensemble comments.

2. Spiral I - this is music in motion a perpetual motion where it leads to a break with a djembe in a "virtual jam session" which literally breaks down. It ends with a cadence of the guitar solo with glass.

3. Light - which takes up the first movement material but the character here is more meditative and minimalist with oozing bright sounds in and out like the colors and shadows of an abstract painting.

4. Spiral II - a continuation of the second movement soon purring material, but this is the term the more aggressive moving toward a more improvisational cadenza where everyone in the ensemble are involved in events like a traffic accident and disappears into thin air.

 5. Epilogue - from this comes a wide "free pulsative" epilogue where the guitarist puts down the guitar on his knees and trembling with a glass on the strings and gradually hanging ensemble that particular sound. Everything fades gradually down dynamically to finally disappear completely.

Live recording from the world premiere
AIR - SPIRAL - LIGHT 
for guitar solo, small ensemble and electronics WORLD PREMIERE!
Apelrydsladan, Båstad
July 1st
Jacob Kellermann, guitar
Camilla Hoitenga; flutes
Karin Dornbusch; clarinets
Magdalena Meitzner, percussion
David Huang, piano
Trio Lendvai:
Nadia Wijzenbeek, violin
Ylvali Zilliacus, viola
Marie Macleod, cello
Christian Karlsen, conductor
Arne Bock, electronics

Air–Spiral–Light Live

Muramaris means literally "the herd by the sea". It's an artist's resident (10 km from the town of Visby) in which was built some years after the turn of the 20th century. With its very ascetic frontal and its beautiful interior, you will get a feeling that it is soon going to collapse! The music starts from nothing and is projecting towards different directions in a surrealistic world. You will find also a fireplace made by sandstone and a sculpture portraying "the goddess of love", which is struck by the last sunbeams during midsummer time.
If you touch these items unnecessarily they will break down and vanish like a desert storm.

Performed by Die Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie and Stefan Solyom conducting, live recording from Die Glocke, Bremen november 27 2007.


Muramaris was composed during summer 2000 in Visby and partially at home in Malmö.


This piece is dedicated to the composer Mattias Svensson, teacher and head master at the Gotland School of Composition.




Muramaris

Salomos sång skrevs på beställning av Lizzie Oved Scheja och Judisk Kultur i Sverige och tillägnat Lizzie Oved Scheja.
När jag fick beställningen på detta verk, sökte jag ivrigt efter texter av judiska författare och diktare. I samarbetet med dramaturgen Jan Mark diskuterade vi, om det fanns några svensk-judiska diktare att söka inspiration hos. Vi läste bland andra Oscar Levertins sista diktcykel Kung Salomon och Morolf (1905).  Den fick bli utgångspunkten för min sångcykel, ett ”femakts” -drama som beskriver en människas livscykel: Kärlek, vemod, sorg och ett sista farväl till livet. /Benjamin Staern

Ljudupptagning och mixninga Leonardo Wehlander www.artofsound.se

Salomos Sång Uruppförande 13 Maj 2017 Konstakademien

Meditation in colours; world premiere recording 6 October 2018
Lunds domkyrka; Robert Bennesh; Lunds Kammarsolister

Dedicated in memory of Marcus Fjellström

Meditation in Colours B Staern __48k-24b

Writing for the clarinet and bass clarinet also is a challenge but also there are fantastic possibilities available that has affected work on the solo part and orchestration and vice versa. 
The origins of this concerto and its title  refers to "an artists' worried souls in an industrial and harsh dystopian society". The music conveys curiosity, spontaneity, playfulness, violence, hard decisions, hopelessness and ultimately its downfall! There is also a sharp criticism of the closures of well-established company that quickly builds up and eventually dismantled because of its time of decadence.

There is a narrative behind the music but the composer has chosen to tell it in the music rather than literally describing exactly what happens in the musical events but want to give freedom to the listener to imagine the way it sounds and what you get for shows.

First movement Introduction - has a sad and searching character as if you were in a fog. The clarinet is expressed in the score "espressivo con melancolia" (expressive of melancholy) and the orchestra is always restrained by then erupts in a huge roar. Clarinet becomes hysterical, and this leads to a dizzying cadenza with the orchestra's clarinets and which eventually fades the kit.

Live performance from the world premiere 16 February 2012, Karin Dornbusch, Norrköping Symphony Orchestra, Stefan Solyom.

Benjamin Staern

Worried Souls 1. Introduction

Lauri Metsvahi; slagverk
Blåsarsymfonikerna
Cathrine Winnes

16 mars 2019, Musikaliska, Stockholm
Svensk musikvår 2019
Uruppförande!

Konnakol Variations - Uruppförande 20190316

Excerpt live from a performance with Norrköping SO and Stefan Solyom conducting on November 27th 2004
Published by Gehrmans Musikförlag AB, Stockholm.

The threat of war excerpt 2

Live from Suntory Festival 2008
Shinya Hashimoto, tuba
Kazuyoshi Akiyama; Tokyo Symphony Orchestra

Published by Gehrmans Musikförlag, Stockholm AB

Sacrificio for tuba, live-electronics and orchestra

Endast luft och brus (Swedish, means "Only air and noise") is a pre-study to Sacrificio for tuba solo, live-electronics and orchestra and is composed in close collaboration with the tuba player 
Kjetil Myklebust. There is also a version for mixed choir and live-electronics that was performed on the Stockholm New Music 2005.

The main focus is based on different consonant sounds formed in the tuba:
”ch” (German pron. i.e. "ich"), ”sh” (Eng.pron. i.e. "vanish"), ”r” (normal r), ”R” (rolling r ), ”f”, ”s”, ”a”, ”e”, ”i” and ”o”.
The other things is vocal attacks: ”k”, ”t”, ”p” and ”g”.
The vocal noise sounds are very abstract, non-cultural but with a certain linear motion that is interrupted with vocal attacks that are more cultural and has in this case a form of a tuba. The found object is to be heard on the first phrase of the tuba. In the score it says "libero e dolcissimo (freely and sweet) quasi cantus firmus". What it differs from an ordinary cantus firmus is that it is more dynamic and expressive. 


recorded on CD by tubist Kjetil Mykebust
”Electric Tuba” C-Y Contemporary CY0904, available at Amazon, iTunes Music Store and assorted music stores around the world.


Endast luft och brus for tuba and electronics

First performance on March 1st 2009 at Palladium in Malmö
Johannes Möller, guitar

Recorded by the Swedish Radio.

Published by Gehrmans Musikförlag, Stockholm AB.

Arpalinea

Live recording from the world premiere performance
Broadcasted on Jong Klassiek at VPRO
Christian Karlsen, conductor
New European Ensemble
White Crow Music Festival Opening Concert 11 nov 2010

Winner of SMFF Award Best Contemporary Music Work in Chamber Music of the Annual Music Publisher's Award 2011 in Stockholm
Published by Gehrmans Musikförlag AB, Stockholm.

Bells and Waves - chamber symphony in five movements

En mididemo utav Pippi lyfter hästen. 

Komponerades på beställning från Sveriges Radio P2 .
Framfört av Noteperfomer Slave Players!

Pippi Lyfter Hästen Demo

Benjamin Staern (b. 1978) started his musical experience with studies in cello, piano and percussion in his youth. Studies in musicology at Lund University and subsequently studied composition at the Malmö Academy of Music during 1998-2005 with Rolf Martinsson, Hans Gefors and Luca Francesconi, and made an early breakthrough, while still a student at the Malmö Academy of Music, with the symphonic work The Threat of War (1999). 

From this point on, Staern has developed a deeply personal style with an output including orchestral and chamber works, solo pieces and electroacoustic music. An interesting aspect of his work as a composer is his unusual ability to associate tones and timbres with different colours and tints. This is a variant of a phenomenon called synaesthesia which is fundamental in his perception and the creation of his music, and which is reflected in his sound world as well as in many of his work titles (Yellow Skies, Colour Wandering etc.) 

Today Staern receives commissions on a regular basis. Looking into the near future, he is commissioned to write a major work for Malmö Symphony Orchestra and song cycle for alto Anna Larsson and Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra. From September 2010 he is composer-in-residence with New European Ensemble for them he composed works from this collaboration such as Tranströmersånger (selected poems from the Sad Gondola - collection by Nobel-prize author and poet Tomas Tranströmer) and Bells and Waves (Chamber Symphony), winner of the SMFF Award 2011 in the category ”most important work in chamber music/smaller ensemble”.

Works by Benjamin Staern is today performed not only by all the major Swedish orchestras but also internationally by orchestras such as the MDR Sinfonieorchester, Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, Iceland Symphony Orchestra, Staatsorchester Rheinische Philharmonie and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. Staern has collaborated with ensembles including New European Ensemble, Sonanza Chamber Ensemble, Ensemble Aspekte and Stockholm Chamber Brass. Soloists include Håkan Hardenberger, Anna Larsson, Johannes Möller, Karin Dornbusch, Carina Vinke, Gitta-Maria Sjöberg, Philippe Cassard and conductors Michael Christie, Daniel Raiskin, Christian Karlsen, Mats Rondin, Mika Eichenholz and Stefan Solyom.

Staerns spellista Tonsättareseminarie

Benjamin Staern Composer