Composer Connections: Karin Rehnqvist
We’re excited to launch Composer Connections this season, a new series that connects audiences with the composers behind the music we perform. Enjoy intimate conversations with our director and composers near and far to explore their creative inspirations, processes, and lives as composers in the strange new landscape outside the concert hall. This series provides a unique look past the score to connect through our shared language of music—to illuminate the people and stories in between the notes on the page that give the choral music deeper meaning.
Our first artist in the Composer Connections series is Swedish composer Karin Rehnqvist, whose work we frequently perform under the direction of Aritistic Director Rebecca Seeman. If you’re familiar with Sacred and Profane, you’ll recognize her impactful work from many of our performances. The ensemble has premiered several of her works in the US, and commissioned the composer to write Songs from the North for our 40th anniversary concert. The companion piece to that work, Day is here! was planned as a US premiere in March 2020, but was cancelled due to coronavirus.
Join us for an intimate conversation with Rebecca and Karin about her inspiration and compositional process, her history with Sacred and Profane, the role of the creative voice out in the community, and how COVID-19 has impacted her life as a composer. Alongside her interview, we’ll also be sharing recent performances of her work to provide a context to her compositional style and celebrate her beautiful repertoire.
Watch the broadcast on our Youtube channel and chat with our director live in the comments. Because Karin is based in Sweden, the interview will be prerecorded due to the time difference and broadcast live as a watch party (and available to watch on-demand after the premiere).
Composer Connections: Karin Rehnqvist
Saturday, October 17 at 6pm
KARIN REHNQVIST (born 1957) is one of Sweden’s best known and most widely performed composers. From chamber music to orchestral, stage and vocal works, she has blazed a unique cross-genre trail, exploring the borderland between art and folk music, and evolving a highly distinctive compositional and performance style.
One of her signature motifs is the extraordinary vocal technique of Kulning, the ancient call of Nordic herding girls to drive in their flocks.
A restless innovator, her repertoire is marked by an uncompromising invention, raw emotional power and the icy shock of the new.