Kinship (2009)
(for chamber ensemble)

Kinship was commissioned by the Swedish Chamber Ensemble. It tries to delve into different kinds of Kinships of earlier pieces of mine as well as similarities and kinships between different types of music. Kinship is based on folk music tradition of Northern Sweden with it’s somber melodies and quarter tones (actually the quarter tones of Nordic folk music has been referred to as “blue notes” for several hundreds of years, long before there existed a musical style called “Blues”). I have never felt strange using material, titles or inspiration from folk music, rock, improvised music or other genres outside of the contemporary/classical tradition. In my personal musical heritage these other styles of music have an equally strong – or sometimes stronger – importance and for me they have qualities that I sometimes find lacking in contemporary music. I have never strived towards a “crossover” type of music (which for me indicates someone standing firmly on one side of a border and picking some objects from the other side to look at), for me the interest lies in the undefined area between two styles or attitudes.