Opera, accordeon, gourmet food and mysticism

Petter Sundkvist, 19th March, 2009

This weekend we had a kick off in Stockholm for the new chamber opera production, Nasflojten. It’s a joint venture with Vadstena Akademien and Norrbotten NEO/Pitea Chamber Opera. The piece is hilarious, an operetta about culture and politics and will be performed throughout August in Vadstena and in October on tour in northern Sweden. Hopefully the musicians in NEO won’t kill me for dragging them into this “high risk” project.
We are in the process of recruiting a new producer to the ensemble and have had a series of interviews during the last weeks. Hopefully everything will be set in April.
NEO made a successful tour in late February – early March with Norwegian accordionist Geir Draugsvoll. In next week rehearsals will start with a new commission by Ingvar Karkoff, based upon the novel Bortbytingen by nobel-prize awarded Selma Lagerlof. It’s a music tale with narrator that will be performed both for youngsters and grownups.
In this week Marten and Christian are touring as soloists with Norrbotten Chamber Orchestra and Terje Tønnesen. We – Marten, Christian, Terje, Shauna and I - had a fantastic dinner Tuesday evening at restaurant Bryggargatan. The discussions covered Bach and number symbolism and also the strange novel Organisten by Erlend Loe which left a lot of question marks in me and Terje.