Chamber opera Monday, September 5th

Thomas Jennefelt

Thomas Jennefelt is intrigued by the relationship between words and music, and not only in his music column for the Stockholm newspaper, Expressen. For musical compositions, he often draws on literary sources, and his style has developed in a dramatic direction, increasingly involving psychological insight and introspection.

Illustrative of this interest are a suite of Petrarch songs; Far vidare, fardeman, inspired by the work of T.S. Eliot; and the grandly conceived Langs radien, a setting for four solo voices and orchestra of a poem by Tomas Transtromer. Dramatic works include Albert and Julia, to words by the poet Stagnelius, and an opera based on a novel by P.C. Jersild. Early choral music includes Warning to the Rich; Domine, and Fern Motetter.

Purely instrumental works are Desiderio for orchestra, Untitled for 10 electric guitars, and Musikfor en katedralbyggare.

Jennefelt (b. 1954) studied composition under Gunnar Bucht and Arne Melinas, graduating as a music teacher from Stockholm's State College of Music in 1980.

Kirsten Delholm

Kirsten Delholm (b. 1945) is a producer and scenographer who works on the interplay of expressive forms between architecture, visual arts, science, theater, music and text. Her installations and exhibitions are often created for the specific architectural spaces in which they are shown.

Productions of the Billedstofteater, which she helped found, have been staged on 28 occasions in Denmark and elsewhere in Europe, including the Musee d'Art Moderne in Paris. In 1985 she founded and became artistic leader of the Hotel Pro Forma group, which has toured international festivals in Europe, Japan and Mexico.

The group scored a recent success with Operation: Orfeo, at Musikhuset in Aarhus and at the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen.

Danish Chamber Players

Storstroms Kammerenscmble - the Danish Chamber Players - takes its name from the Storstrom (" Great Stream1') separating the country's two largest, southerly islands from Copenhagen's island of Zealand. Founded May 1991. the youthful DCP is recognized today as one of the elite chamber ensembles of Europe's oldest kingdom.

The unusual combination of flute, clarinet, trumpet, harp, piano and cello - a violin and a viola will soon be added - performs works from the Renaissance to the 1990s. Several new pieces by leading Danish composers have been commissioned and added to the repertoire.

Employed by the Danish State and Storstrom County to enliven the local music milieu, the Players' own productions often feature elite singers and instrumentalists from Denmark and abroad. Nationally, the DCP has guested at festivals such as the new music festival, Numus, in Aarhus, and in radio broadcasts of Bach, Haydn and Brahms. The Players have performed in music theater productions, notably in Peter Maxwell Davies' Eight Songs for a Mad King, with the Australian Opera soloist Lyndon Terracini.

Svend Aaquist Johansen

DCP's artistic director, Svend Aaquist Johansen, has guest-conducted Germany's Ensemble Modern and most of the Danish symphony orchestras, with productions at the Royal Danish Theatre in Copenhagen.

Aaquist Johansen, a graduate of the Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen, is a composer and conductor of tremendous versatility. Aaquist Johansen has led many different groups in Denmark and abroad, and since the late 1980s has added major opera and theater performances to his lengthy credits.

Aaquist Johansen (b. 1948) was principal conductor and artistic director of Ensemble LYT (1979-80); the Danish ISCM Ensemble (1980-85); the Esbjerg Ensemble (1984-88), and the Danish Chamber Players (1991-). He has been composer-pianist-theater performer with such modern music, dance and theater troupes as the Alternative Music Group, Storehouse Thirteen Dance Theatre, Loving Movement Dance Theatre, and Grupo de Accion Instrumental de Buenos Aires.