Jens Hedman Icebreaker ( Sweden) (Eng)

Jens Hedman ( Sweden)
Icebreaker

In this piece I focus on my experiences traveling around the world, especially many of the South American countries involved in this project. It strikes me how similar we are but also how different our social-structures, history and living conditions can be. It was interesting to hear sounds unique to the South American composers’ environments. Demonstrations, historic instruments, jungle sounds, lively street sounds, carnivals... In choosing my own sonic material I wanted to find sounds that don’t exist in South America and which might be unique to Sweden. I have used Swedish folk music, the rich sound world of snow, ice and stones that I found along the seashore close to the house of Ingemar Bergman on the island of Gotland - sounds that might capture the Swedish soul. The challenge was to interplay my sounds with selected South American sounds - to find their inherent drama and allow them to interact in a musical way. To me it has been very rewarding to work with other composers’ material. The title infers not only the main source sounds but also the idea of the North-South project as an opener for better contact and understanding between the Nordic and South American countries.

Jens Hedman is a long time established name in Swedish electroacoustic music. His music has been performed at festivals, concerts and on radio all over the world and has received several important prizes in international music competitions. Hedman composes both instrumental and electroacustic music. He often combines his music with other artistic expressions, collaborating with writers, visual artists, choreographers and architects. To Hedman the spatial content of music is very important and many of his works explore space and movement utilizing multi channel techniques. He has also participated in several collaborate compositions together with other Swedish composers.