Magnus Granberg & Skogen

Wednesday 26 November 2025 • 7pm

A man wearing glasses and a sweater sits indoors, looking to the side in a black and white photograph.

Photo: Anton Lukoszevieze

Skogen firar sitt tjugoårsjubileum med ett uruppförande av tonsättaren Magnus Granbergs stycke Trouble, Had it All My Days. Stycket tar sin utgångspunkt i en aria ur Bachs kantat BWV 21 (Ich hatte viel Bekümmerniß) men lånar sin titel från en textrad ur en sång av den amerikanske bluessångaren och gitarristen Mississippi John Hurt.

Skogen

Anna Lindal, violin
Eva Lindal, violin
Angharad Davies, violin
Leo Svensson Sander, cello
Heather Roche, clarinet
Finn Loxbo, guitar
Stina Hellberg Agback, harp
Magnus Granberg, prepared piano
Simon Allen, vibraphone and percussion
Erik Carlsson, percussion
Henrik Olsson, amplified objects
Petter Wästberg, contact microphone, mixer, loudspeaker
Toshimaru Nakamura, no-input mixing board

—

Med stöd från STIM Forward Fund, Helge Ax:son Johnsons Stiftelse, Stiftelsen Längmanska Kulturfonden, Stockholm Stad och Statens Kulturråd.

Born in Umeå in 1974, he studied saxophone and improvisation at the University of Gothenburg and in New York in his late teens and early twenties. Self-taught as a composer, he formed his own ensemble Skogen in 2005 trying to integrate experiences, methods and materials from various traditions of improvised and composed musics into a new modus operandi.

His music has been performed in Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, the United States, England, Austria, Hungary and Slovenia, broadcast by public radio channels in England (BBC Radio 3 and 6), Germany (SWR 2), Sweden (SR P2), Estonia, Slovenia, Serbia, Hungary and the United States, and has been published by the renowned British record label Another Timbre.

Skogen

Led by pianist Magnus Granberg, Skogen is a Swedish ensemble working at an intersection between contemporary chamber music and improvisation. The music, which originates from the interplay between composition and improvisation and between individual and collective processes, is a poetical practice which in subtle and seemingly paradoxical ways unifies order with chaos, unity with diversity and the past with the present.

The ensemble has released seven CDs on the renowned British record label Another Timbre and has performed at festivals such as Ultima (NO), Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival (UK), Splitter Music Festival (DE) and Ulrichsberger Kaleidophon (AT).

Angharad Davies

Angharad Davies is a Welsh violinist based in London working with free-improvisation, compositions and performance.

Her approach to sound involves attentive listening and exploring beyond the sonic confines of her instrument, her classical training and performance expectation.

Much of her work involves collaboration. She has long standing duos with Tisha Mukarji, Dominic Lash and Lina Lapelyte and plays with Common Objects, Cranc and Skogen. She has been involved in projects with Tarek Atui, Tony Conrad, Richard Dawson, Gwenno, Roberta Jean, Jack McNamara, Rie Nakajima, Tim Parkinson, Eliane Radigue, Georgia Ruth and J.G.Thirlwell.

Most of her records are released on Another Timbre but she also has releases on Absinth Records, allthatdust, Confrontrecords, Emanem, Potlatch, NI VU Ni CONNU and winds measure recordings. Her first orchestral piece was commissioned by LCMF in 2019 : I ble'r aeth y gwrachod i gyd....?/ Where did all the witches go...? She has since been commissioned by Explore Ensemble: Sitting with Emptiness (2022); GBSR duo: Empty Spaces II (2023) and will be making new pieces for andPlay, Dominic Lash and Heather Roche in 2025.

www.angharaddavies.com

Finn Loxbo

Finn Loxbo är gitarrist med fokus på fri improvisation. Hans musik befinner sig oftast på endera sidan av två dynamiska extremer: ljudsvagt akustiskt eller mycket ljudstarkt. På den lågmälda sidan återfinner vi honom i hans egen ensemble Kommun, som soloakt och i samarbeten med t ex Skogen. Exempel från den ljudstarkare sidan är Kyosaku, Anna Högberg Extended Attack, och tidigare i band som Doglife, Strändernas svall och Fire! Orchestra.

Henrik Olsson

Ever since he was the drummer and percussionist in legendary band gul3 (Yellow3 in English), Henrik Olsson have made great contributions to the field of experimental music in Sweden. As composer and improviser, his curiosity and open-minded musical thought has brought him to a rich world of musical textures, quite often realized electronically through amplified sounds and with silence as a natural part of the musical result.