Releases

Artists

Anders Jormin composer, bass
Lena Willemark vocal, violin
Karin  Nakagawa koto
Bohuslän Big Band

CD info

Release no: LOS 219-2
EAN: 7090025832192

Bohuslän Big Band:
Reeds:
Joakim Rolandson as, ss, fl (Solo 3, 9)
Martin Svanström as, cl, fl
Ove Ingemarsson ts (Solo 4, 5, 6, 11, 14)
Mikael Karlsson ts, fl, afl
Alberto Pinton bs, fl, bcl (Solo 10)
Trumpets/ flugelhorns:
Lennart Grahn
Samuel Olsson (Solo 3)
Staffan Svensson (Solo 2, 9, 14)
Jan Eliasson
Trombones:
Niclas Rydh
Christer Olofsson
Hanne Småvik
Ingrid Utne btb

Stefan Wingefors piano
Yasuhito Mori bass (5, 6, 11, 13, 14)
Göran Kroon drums

Digisleeve in the link below:
Download Press Release (PDF)

About the Music:

Ogadh dett / Your Eye (Willemark / Jormin)
A love poem by Lena Willemark, written and partly sung in älvdalska, her native tongue from the mountain regions of midwest Sweden. A song about reaching into the eyes of your beloved.
En gång skall du / There Comes a Time for You (Pär Lagerkvist / Jormin)   Each and everyone of us will one day, cherished only by the soil, become the memory of someone who lived a long time ago. These memorable words are by Swedish poet Pär Lagerkvist (1891-1974).
Dikten jag alltid drömt om att skriva / The Poem I Wanted to Write (Sören Ulrik Thomsen / Jormin) These wonderful poetic words are by Danish poet Sören Ulrik Thomsen. On the radio you suddenly, by coincidence, hear a choir of children singing in what might be Russian, the poem you always dreamt of putting into words.
Synsk poet / Second-sighted Poet (Sören Ulrik Thomsen / Jormin) Lena’s voice interfoliates Sören Ulrik Thomsen’s strong stanzas expressing the emotional crossing of the border from taking life for granted to the remarkable phenomena of not being dead.
Ödetorp / Desolate Cottage (Jormin) A short tone poem of a deserted and flattened cottage just where the forest meets the open light. A house full of forgotten life.
Krattskogslada / Grove Barn (Jormin) A song for the big band. Between the cliffs on the rocky coastline, barely protected from the salty ocean winds, grow the low mountain oaks. Surrounded by these persistent trees, stands a tumble-downed barn in a solitary grove. Its range of application forgotten already a long time ago.
Hirajoshi (Willemark / Jormin) The first text sung by Lena is my own simple setting clearly inspired by the themes of the old Japanese haiku tradition. Later in the piece, Lena sings her sensitive poem of being left and lost- and slowly finding yourself again. The music is throughout the piece built on the Japanese scale called Hirajoshi.
Not (Jormin) Lena plays her expressive violin on my own humble interpretation of the Swedish folk music tradition and the form we call polska. The Swedish word “not” has poetic and ambiguous dimensions. It means a fishing net, it can be a tone or it can be a notation to remember.
Oktoberhavet / The October Sea (Tomas Tranströmer / Jormin) This reflective poem, originally called Vädertavla, is by Swedish poet Tomas Tranströmer (1931-2015). The words speak about the resting sea in October and the silence of the autumn light. Tranströmer, with his deep knowledge in music, also empathetically claimed that “the music says freedom exists”.
Utmarksäng / Hillside Meadow (Jormin) An instrumental poem for trombones and bass clarinet in music somehow picturing the remote Swedish mountain farm called säter.
Kronohemman / Homestead (Jormin) A whirling melody in 7/4 where my inner visualizations were the old, isolated villages, farms, islands or areas in Sweden of the past; places where you could be born, grow up, live your entire life and one day die – all in the same small and closed part of the world.
Dröm / Dream (Willemark / Jormin) Lena’s poem dances around my repetitive bass figure as a dream in colours of green and hazel brown.
Måseskär (Jormin) The title is the name of the lighthouse I see from the island where I live. Many Swedes know this rocky islet from the Swedish Radio weather forecast; hardly anyone has ever been there. A melody shaped by wind and waves.
Fyrstation / Lighthouse (Jormin) For century after century, the lighthouse has been the necessary and treasured guide for travelers at sea. These lighthouses were kept in function by families or single persons under the toughest and most secluded conditions. This piece is maybe an homage both to all these unknown heroes and to the windswept buildings themselves.

The music on this CD is chosen from an extensive commission for big band, Lena and Karin that was performed in the autumn of 2018; the commissioned music originally lasting for two complete concert sets. The title was then Svenska hus ensligt belägna, after a poem by Tomas Tranströmer. It can possibly be translated to Swedish Houses, Solely Located. In different ways, this theme of seclusion inspired me. To compose and arrange for Lena and her magnificent expressivity, for the Japanese ancient koto played so wonderfully by Karin, and trying to embrace their artistry and my own way of hearing music into the big band context, was an inspiring challenge.

To Lena and Karin, to the fantastic soloists of the orchestra, to all its devoted musicians, to Lars who recorded us and to the commissioners: Thank you!

Anders Jormin