Tales from the North – Complete Works for Solo Guitar by Per Nørgård

Since 2002, guitarist Stefan Östersjö has been engaged in an artistic research project at the Malmö Academy of Music, in which he has studied his own collaboration with a number of composers. He has devoted many of these studies to one of the most significant composers of our time, Per Nørgård (b. 1932), and his complete works for guitar.

Stefan Östersjö writes in his lengthy introductory essay to this anthology that “musical interpretation is a complex, multi-layered artistic labour…” and that “the work I’ve put into the studies on these CDs has been an important artistic journey for me…” The collaboration between musician and composer begins the process whereby a kind of performance praxis emerges, a creative process which departs from the relationship between the composer and the one interpreting the identity of the work and the meaning of the words.”

The CD was released to coincide with Östersjö’s public defence on 14 October 2008. The artistic research project is entitled SHUT UP ’N’ PLAY! and includes interactive installations and public concerts.