New Oboe Music Project

I was very pleased that the New Oboe Music Project chose to feature my music recently.

“This month’s featured composer is one who has written particularly striking and beautiful music for the oboe. It was in 2007 that I heard Ellen’s piece Zosa performed by Laura Karney in Germany. I was immediately struck by how very well she had made use of multiphonics and techniques such as having the oboe play into the piano. Ellen really understood the instrument very well and has composed works that are very strong additions to the repertoire.”

Click here to read!

 

 

Chamber Music * PROJECTS: * REVIEWS: Uncategorized Upcoming ongoing

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Mot blått (Toward Blue)

for flute quartet (2 alto flutes, 2 bass flutes)

Listen: Mot blått (Toward Blue)
Recorded at Studio Epidemin, Gothenburg, May 2017
(40f: Ann Elkjär, Jill Widén, Bjørnar Habbestad, Anna Svensdotter)

Mot blått

I am fascinated by the use of color in weaver Hannah Ryggen’s works: both the colors themselves, and what Ryggen so eloquently expresses through her use of them. The colors have a life of their own: the intensity, richness, and subtle variation within each, the fact that Hannah dyed her wool and linen using only dyes made from natural materials (many of which she harvested and prepared herself), the extensive experimentation that went into developing her colors (especially her famous blues). However, I am perhaps most fascinated by that which she chooses to express, and how she expresses it using those colors. Ryggen uses her carefully crafted colors to express her responses to events in the world around her. She weaves about her immediate surroundings, yes: the Ørland lanscape, her family, the animals on their farm. Many of her strongest works, though, are pieces in which she weaves her responses to and opinions about critical issues in a world far from Ørland.

Deeply inspired by Hannah Ryggen’s work, my new quartet for 40f has emerged from my reflections on Ryggen’s oeuvre as a whole. I have crafted my ‘sound-colors’ with care, and woven them to express my reaction to three deeply entangled and troubling current issues in the United States: systemic racial inequality, gun violence, and police brutality based on racial profiling. I can site far too many specific examples of each. However, in Mot blått (Toward Blue), I choose to call attention to the depth and complexity of these problems, and to express my belief that a new way of interacting can evolve — is evolving — based on respect, love and non-violence.

Mot blått (Toward Blue) was premiered by flute quartet 40f on 18 November 2016 at Dokkhuset in Trondheim, as part of both the Trondheim Documentary Festival and The Hannah Ryggen Triennalen (Nordenfjeldske Kunstindustrimuseum).

Mot blått was funded by the Swedish Arts Council (Kulturrådet).

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A Sense of Place

open instrumentation, 2-8 instruments

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Alpaca Ensemble Plays Ellen Lindquist

Friday 4 april • 1 p.m. • Rein kirke • Rissa • Norge: Opening of KULMIN
Saturday 26 april • 3 p.m. • Huskonsert i Rissa  more information
Sunday 27 april • 1 p.m. • Ilen kirke • Trondheim  more information

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Chamber Music Solo works * PROJECTS: Upcoming

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Flute quartet for 40F

I’m looking forward to a brand-new project for flute quartet with Göteborg’s fantastic 40F! Premiere will be in 2016…will post more info as it comes.

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Birds

Photo by Hans Falklind

Cecilia Ekmark commissioned me (thanks to generous funding from Statensmusikverk) to write a new piece for flute(s) and piano (Roger Johansson), inspired both by Hans Falklind‘s bird photographs and birdsong, for her ongoing project called Birds. This project is also supported by Sveriges ornitologiska förening (SOF) and BirdLife International. We met twice in Göteborg to develop material through improvisation, which I have now used as raw material to create the piece. Tomas Tranströmer’s early poem ‘Preludium’ is woven throughout the piece, which is titled ‘Vingarna breddas’ (‘The Wings Spread’). The project premiered 26 May 2013 in Gothenburg’s 3.e Våningen.

Watch video about project BIRDS

Watch BIRDS trailer

Chamber Music * PROJECTS: Upcoming

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Somniloquy

for bass clarinet, tenor/bari sax, piano; also for bass clarinet, cello, piano

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Aanlanden

for string trio; also for clarinet, cello and marimba Read more »

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The Zoco Duo

I am writing a new piece for the Zoco Duo (Barcelona, Spain):

Laura Karney, oboe and English horn
Jacob Cordover, guitar

 

Chamber Music * PROJECTS: Upcoming

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Zonnebloem

for solo clarinet

also, for 2 clarinets Read more »

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Zosa

oboe and piano Read more »

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Groundings

alto sax, cello, and piano

also: cl. (A)-vc-pno • alto fl.-vc-pno • alto fl.-bsn-pno • alto sax-bass cl.-pno • piano trio • soprano-Indian harmonium-vn-pno • alto fl.-contrabass fl.-pno
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Fanfare for brass quintet

2 B-flat trumpets, French horn (F), trombone, and bass trombone Read more »

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The Second Coming

soprano, tenor, clarinet, percussion, piano, violin, and cello
[a setting of The Second Coming by W. B. Yeats]

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Aspetuck Waters

piano with string orchestra and percussion

or piano and string quintet (2 violins, viola, cello, and contrabass) Read more »

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Sémélé

for tenor (or soprano) and theorbo
[text (French): Isabelle Balot] Read more »

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Chants d’Amour et de Mort

tenor, violin, cello, and piano
[song cycle of poetry by Isabelle Balot] Read more »

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