Båstad Chamber Music Festival 2023

For the 31:st time Båstad Chamber Music Festival is delighted to welcome artists and audience to our beautiful peninsula during the last week of June. This is the third year as artistic director for the creative Norwegian conductor, Cathrine Winnes. The theme that Cathrine chose for this year’s festival is The Nordic Countries.

The majority of musicians at the festival have strong connections to the Nordic Countries, where they live or play with Nordic groups. They will regale the audience with a wealth of Nordic music but also music from other countries.

Our Composer in Residence, Steingrimur Rohloff is half Icelandic and half German, and lives in Copenhagen with a Swedish violinist. A highlight of our Grand Finale is the premiere of a piece specially composed by Steingrimur for the festival, to be played by the outstanding Stockholm Syndrome Ensemble.

Messiaen Quartet Copenhagen, is a Danish-Swedish collaboration named after the French composer Oliver Messiaen, whose Quartet For the End of Time they are going to play at the festival.

Opus13, one of Scandinavia’s most up-and-coming string quartets, will play pieces by Grieg.

Norwegian-based Oriental Winds of the Baroque, a constellation of musicians from Spain, the Ivory Coast and of course Norway, will show us how European baroque music has been influenced by musical styles from many different countries far away from Europe.

Danish- Latvian Carion Wind Quintet will perform music by Carl Nielsen and Beethoven.

The fabulous Swedish soprano, Ida Falk Winland, will sing songs by Finnish composer Sibelius and Swedish composer Bo Linde. Bernt Ola Volungholen, a talented Norwegian baritone, will sing pieces from Schubert’s Winterreise together with songs by the Swedish song writers Evert Taube and Carl Michael Bellman. Moreover we will be joined by a further number of gifted instrumentalists who will play solo or in different constellations throughout the week.

We continue to start the musical day with our very popular Breakfast Clubs, one of which explores the poetry of Finnish-Swedish poet, Edith Södergran. Her poetry will be accompanied by Bach’s cello suites. Our guest presenter for the remaining week, Swedish Radio journalist Karsten Thurfjell , will give his reflections on those particular aspects of Nordic culture that we share in common, and those that distinguish us from each other. Each musical morning will feature lovely music to whet your appetite for the rest of the day’s programme.

In addition to a full programme of concerts we continue our tradition of offering Master Classes in collaboration with Malmö Academy of Music and Musik i Syd. This year includes a Master Class in Composition, and a Master Class for Strings, which will conclude with a public concert.

It is its importance to the local community, which makes the Båstad Kammarmusikfestival an enduring success. Organised, managed and run primarily by a team of over 50 volunteers from all sections of the community, this is a significant cultural event for the local community, as well as for Sweden. Without their support the festival just could not take place.