Magnus Granberg is a composer and performer working at an intersection between contemporary chamber music and improvisation.
Born in Umeå in 1974, he studied saxophone and improvisation at the University of Gothenburg and in New York in his late teens and early twenties. Self-taught as a composer, he formed his own ensemble Skogen in 2005 trying to integrate experiences, methods and materials from various traditions of improvised and composed musics into a new modus operandi.
Apart from the ongoing work with Skogen and other ensembles he has increasingly been writing music on commission for musicians, ensembles and institutions like Nate Wooley, andPlay, Apartment House, Ordinary Affects, a.pe.ri.od.ic, Insub Meta Orchestra and Dramaten. He has also collaborated regularly with musicians such as Toshimaru Nakamura, Ko Ishikawa, Rhodri Davies, Angharad Davies and Jürg Frey.
The music has been performed at festivals, venues and institutions such as Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival (UK), Edition Festival (SE), Cafe OTO (UK), Music We’d Like to Hear (UK), Ultima (NO), Columbia University (US), New England Conservatory of Music (US), Non-Event (US), Frequency Festival (US), Bowerbird Foundation (US), Splitter Music Festival (DE), KM 28, (DE), Studio Ernest Ansermet (CH) and Ftarri Festival (JP).
The music has been documented on close to twenty records on labels such as Another Timbre (UK), Ftarri/Meenna (JP), Thanatosis (SE) and Insub (CH) and has also been broadcast on public radio stations in the US, UK (BBC Radio 3 and 6), Germany (Deutschlandfunk Kultur, SWR 2) France (France Musique), Latvia, Estonia, Serbia and Slovenia.
