works

c.s.n. 
for string quartet.
Live from Fylkingen, Stockholm, May 2001
Maria Lindal & Anna Ivanova-Sundin (vln), Joel Sundin (vla), Marcus Karnéus (vlc)

csn (2001, excerpt, first measures)

Based on grand piano recordings done in Visby, Gotland (of my solo piano piece 'wit' (2002)). Composed, processed and arranged through a drum machine.
Featured in the documentary film "Desde el Filo de la Navaja" ( TrickleUp Films, 2008).

Roxy, Visby
Ersta Konsthall, Göteborg

brevity is the soul of wit (2002)

Church organ quartet

For four church organs of various sizes. One of the organs is placed outside the main church hall. One of the organs is in medieval phytagorean tuning.
Recording: rehearsal, winter 2001, with Claes Holmgren, Berith Tivell, Hans-Gunnar Engström and Magnus Berglöf, S:t Maria Domkyrka/ Cathedral, Visby, Gotland.

a.d. (2002, excerpt)

for video version (with same sound/recording): 
https://vimeo.com/87122389
or
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivEAVU8V27A

residual productivity
for percussion quartet and live electronics
by fredrik gran
performed by architek percussion quartet
premiered feb 13 2014 live @cirmmt concert series, 
mmr (-2), new music building, montreal, canada
this is a binaural recording (optimized for headphones)
www.architekpercussion.ca
www.fredrikgran.com
objects: typewriter, reception bell, mechanical stamp, sewing machine, egg timer, milk frother, radio, record player, stapler, bakelite telephone, mechanical metronome, hand vacuum cleaner
percussionists: ben duinker, mark morton, ben reimer, alessandro valiante

residual productivity (binaural live recording)

material: helicopter recordings, contrabass, nord modular synth, radio and turntable. 


aerodynamik (2005, stereo version)

among hills (2003, exerpt)

symphonic wind orchestra
Stockholms Läns Blåsarsymfoniker & Michael Bartosh

concerning answering walls, lately (2005, extract)

time codec for chamber ensemble (14 instruments)

time codec

Starlight, Silhouettes, And You

Mors Et Natura

demo exerpt from the upcoming work 'music beyond the surface'

84°03'N 174°51'W (demo excerpt)

trois minutes de style motet ancien, pour cordes, à travers une radio

Live recording, Pollack Hall, Montreal 2013-04-05.
Mcgill Contemporary Music Ensemble (CME), conductor Christian German Gort

seven eves

live exerpt from Berwaldhallen
KMH Symphony orchestra 
Conductor Paul Mägi

Imminent Crossings (excerpt)

Live recording excerpt with Quasar quatuor de saxophone 20150312 at Le Vivier, Le Gesù, Centre de créativité, Montréal, CA

champ magnétique (excerpt)

electroacoustic

selected performances:
Ljud o ljud, Fylkingen, Stockholm
SICMF, Jayu Theater, Seoul Arts Center, Seoul
Elsvets, Fylkingen, Stockholm
MuTeFestival, Sibelius Academy, Helsinki
Elektronsöndag i Boulognern, Milles Ängar, Gävle
FEASt Festival, Herbert and Nicole Wertheim Performing Arts Center, Miami
Elektronlördag, Skottes, Gävle

el algoritmo del antagonista

Recording: (string septet version:)Marcus Jonsson (cond), Johanna Tafvelin, Hanna Ekström & Caroline Valdermarsson (vln), Ida Nyman (vla), Cecilia Linné, Stina Pettersson (vlc), Michael Carlqvist (cb).

1st Prize-winning composition of the London Music Society 2017 International Composer’s Competition. 
1st Prize-winning composition of the 2017 Eleanor Stubey Recording Prize.

Selected performances: Christ Church Cathedral, Montreal. Église Notre-Dame-Des-Sept-Douleur, Verdun. Lion d’Or, Montreal.  La Fonderie Darling, Montreal. Casa Del Popolo, Montreal. Sagebrush Theatre, Kamloops. St Stephen’s Church, London. Staatstheater am Gärtnerplatz, Munich. Bromma Kyrka, Stockholm. Styrsö Kyrka, Göteborg. Christinateatern, Kristinehamn. Konserthuset Spira, Jönköpig. Bodø Domkirke, Bodø.

Selected performers: London City Philharmonic; Olsi Quinami (UK), Ballett und Orchester des Staatstheaters am Gärtnerplatz; Michael Brandstätter (DE), Phoebus Chamber Orchestra; Andrew Crust (US), Arctic Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra; Kjetil Almenning (NO), Ensemble Arkea; Dina Gilbert (CA), Kamloops Symphony Orchestra; Dina Gilbert (CA), Jönköpings Sinfonietta; Christian von Gehren (SE), Kristinehamns Stråkorkester; Maria Erixon (SE), Quasar saxophones (CA), Mtl Strings; Francois Koh (KR), Styrsö Kammarsolister with Stenhammar Quartet (SE), KMH Strings; Marcus Jonsson (SE).

Comment: Pictures of fields without fences aims to strip down the music to the essential parameters, to peel off and remove until what is left is some kind of ‘skeleton music’. It offers a meditation on the inevitable transformation or obsolescence of things, in the manner of a photograph which over time becomes faded and bleached by the sun.

pictures of fields without fences

for cello & electronics
vlc: Emilie Girard-Charest

recording:
dcs studios, mcGill, montréal

selected performances:
orford arts center, sherbrooke
l'envers, montréal
sala rosa, montréal
the tank, new york city
la société de curiosités, paris
sibelius academy, helsinki

From end pin to peg 
[-Alexis Raynault, cettevilleetrange, chronique sul la création musicale québécoise]

Altered grey, for cello and tape, evolved from the development of an anterior work called grey matters, from which it retains the same playing techniques as well as many electroacoustics elements. The result of a close collaboration between performer and composer, altered grey opens to whoever plays it a vast space of freedom, mirroring Émilie Girard-Charest’s approaches as an improviser and composer. Only the regions of the instrument to be explored in the course of the work are determined, pin, peg, fingerboard, with or without the bow, while the playing on the strings intervenes only at the very end of the process, and without any specific pitch.

This concrete approach to the instruments, also found in the music of Helmut Lachenmann which was heard in that same recital, aims to liberate the instruments from bearings accumulated through centuries of repertory. One seeks to rediscover, through playing techniques that leave ample room to intuition, the initial wonderment, the primitive fascination for the created sound, where, to cite the visionary Hector Berlioz, every sounding body musically moulded by the composer is a musical instrument.

If this attitude, which one can term concrete, originates from the desire to hear sounds for themselves, distanced from their obvious structural significance, the path that Fredrik Gran has taken stems from a will to synthesize, in which fixed sounds find their correspondence in the cello playing: the human voice and the cello sounds transformed to the point of becoming heavy motives with deep frequencies, the mute percussion and the residual sounds of a vinyl disc stuck in its groove, as well as waves of white sound which constitute the electroacoustic framework of altered grey are here quoted by the instrument, itself fused to the tape due to the close-recording by two microphones. The delicate formal and sonorous equilibrium that mixed music requires is here masterfully realized, the electroacoustic score unfurled by large sequences differentiated by their rhythmic articulation: those articulations frame the cello’s improvisations by signposting it with clear supports without however disturbing the hierarchy of the perceived sonorous planes.

The recourse to improvisation as well as the organisation of the tape in broad temporal sections confers upon altered grey a suppleness sometimes escaping processes used in live electronics, since the latter’s relative heaviness, now audible, impedes the performer’s freedom. Beyond any means, any formula, the liberated ear will find the path to surprising sonorous combinations.

Program notes – altered grey

altered grey is the result of a sustained collaboration between cellsit Émilie Girard-Charest and composer Fredrik Gran.

The work’s electroacoustic score is elaborated following different operations based on sampling frequencies, unfolding speeds as well as transformations made to soundfiles themselves. Among the sonorous origins one finds a turntable, a tape recorder, the sound of an electric fence as well as cello recordings.

One hears in the spoken introduction various excerpts from a text by Howard Philip Lovecraft translated in Swedish:
…grey… …decay… …fragile… …small pieces… …crack and fall off…
…all the while… …body… …could not bring… …touch upon… …but he looked at what had once been… …a face… …his friends… …face… …what was it…
------------
lôturant la série Sonnez ici ! le récital de la violoncelliste Émilie Girard-Charest nous donnera à entendre altered grey, création du suédois Fredrik Gran ainsi que la première nord-américaine de …il remoto silenzio, œuvre de la musicienne uruguayenne Graciela Paraskevaidis.

Le concert sera présenté en la salle de récital du Conservatoire de musique de Montréal, ce jeudi le 2 septembre 2010 à 19h30.

Fredrik Gran – altered grey

altered grey, pour violoncelle et bande, se présente comme le développement d’une œuvre antérieure intitulée grey matters dont elle conserve les techniques de jeu de même que plusieurs éléments électroacoustiques. Fruit d’une étroite collaboration entre sa présente interprète et le compositeur, altered grey ouvre à celui qui la joue un vaste espace de liberté, reflet de la pratique d’Émilie Girard-Charest comme improvisatrice et compositrice. Ne sont d’ailleurs déterminées que les régions de l’instrument à explorer au cours de l’œuvre, pique, chevilles, touche, avec ou sans archet alors que le jeu sur les cordes n’intervient qu’en toute fin de parcours et ce sans hauteur spécifiée.

Cette approche concrète des instruments, que l’on retrouvera également dans la musique de Helmut Lachenmann entendue au sein de ce même récital, vise à libérer ces derniers des références accumulées au cours de siècles de répertoire. Il s’agit alors de retrouver, par le biais de techniques de jeu faisant la part belle à l’intuition, l’émerveillement initial, la fascination primitive pour le son produit où, pour citer le visionnaire Hector Berlioz, tout corps sonore mis en musique par le compositeur est un instrument de musique.

Si cette attitude, que l’on peut dire concrète, relève du désir d’entendre les sons pour eux-mêmes, distanciés de leur signifiance structurelle obvie, la voie empruntée par Fredrik Gran répond quant à elle d’une volonté de synthèse où les sons fixés trouvent leur correspondance dans le jeu du violoncelle : la voix humaine et les sons de violoncelles transformés jusqu’à en devenir de lourds motifs de fréquences graves, la percussion sourde et les sons résiduels d’un disque vinyle coincé dans son sillon ainsi que les vagues de bruit blanc constituant la trame électroacoustique de altered grey se voient cités par l’instrument, lui-même fusionné à la bande par une captation rapprochée de deux microphones. Le délicat équilibre formel et sonore que requiert la musique mixte est ici réalisé avec habileté, la partition électroacoustique se déployant en de larges séquences que différencie leur articulation rythmique : ces articulations viennent encadrer l’improvisation du violoncelle en la balisant d’appuis clairs sans pour autant altérer la hiérarchie des plans sonores perçus.

Le recours à l’improvisation de même que l’organisation de la bande en grandes plages temporelles confère à altered grey une souplesse échappant parfois aux procédés employés par le live electronics où la relative lourdeur de ces derniers, devenue audible, entrave la liberté de l’interprète. Par-delà tout moyen, toutes formules, c’est l’oreille libérée qui saura trouver le chemin des plus surprenantes combinaisons sonores.

Note de programme – altered grey

altered grey est le fruit d’une collaboration soutenue entre la violoncelliste Émilie Girard-Charest et le compositeur Fredrik Gran.

La partition électroacoustique de l’œuvre est élaborée suivant différentes opérations portant sur les fréquences d’échantillonnage, de vitesses de déroulement ainsi que de transformations apportées aux fichiers-sons eux-mêmes. Parmi les sources sonores se trouve une table-tournante, un enregistreur à cassette, le son d’une clôture électrique de même que des enregistrements de violoncelle.

L’introduction parlée donne à entendre différents extraits d’un texte de Howard Philip Lovecraft traduits en suédois :
…grey… …decay… …fragile… …small pieces… …crack and fall off…
…all the while… …body… …could not bring… …touch upon… …but he looked at what had once been… …a face… …his friends… …face… …what was it…

altered grey

Deed - for flute, violin, cello & piano

Dedicated (and performed by) the Peärls before Swïne Experience (George Kentros (vln), Sara Hammarström (flt), Mats Olofsson (vlc), Mårten Landström (pno)):
Live recording from Crescendo, Norrköping, Sweden (including presentation by George Kentros).
http://www.swinepearl.com/svin1eng.html

Selected performances:
Baltic Art Center, Visby
Nalen, Stockholm
B.A.S. Bandhagen, Stockholm
SR P2 Live
Xxx, Tokyo
Marvin Duchow Library, Montréal

Deed

for string orchestra
Ensemble Arkea & Conductor Dina Gilbert 
Live recording from Église Notre-Dame-des-Sept-Douleur, Verdun, May 10 2012
1st prize winner-piece in the codes d' acces / Acces Arkea composition competition 2012. 
www.ensemblearkea.com
www.codesdacces.org

portmanteau morphemes

for viola, cello and live electronics
Jean René (vla), Émilie Girard-Charest (vlc)
Montréal, May 2012

autokinetic nests

MAINS HUM (2017)
Performed by Quasar quatuor de saxophones 
Recorded at Studio Pierre Marchand, Montreal
Honored with the Eleanor Stubley Recording Prize
Premiered at Amphithéâtre du Gesù, Montreal

Mains Hum

Fredrik Gran is a composer from the Vällingby suburb in Stockholm, Sweden. He is interested in the musical potential of machinic and mechanical processes and in experimenting with new performative strategies. His work covers orchestral, chamber, vocal, electroacoustic and live electronic music, as well as music for installations, dance, digital and visual art. Fredrik's music has been recognized internationally, performed at festivals such as Warsaw Autumn Festival (Warsaw), ISCM (Vancouver, CA), SICMF (Seoul, KR), the Nordic Music Days (Copenhagen, Helsinki, Bodø), Tage Neue Musik (Weimar, DE), ICMC (Belfast, NI), Festival MANCA (Nice, FR), NoiseGate (NYC, US) and has been primed in many competitions such as London Music Society International Composer’s Competition (UK), Codes d’Acces Access Arkea (CA), Eleanor Stubley Recording Award (CA) and CIRMMT Research grant (CA). He studied composition at the Music Academy in Stockholm and at McGill University in Montreal, where his doctoral research is connected to the Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Music Media and Technology (CIRMMT).

Fredrik Gran

Pinned to spotlight

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