Hans-Ola Ericsson

"Hans-Ola Ericsson is one of the exceptional figures on the international music scene, distinguishing himself both as performer and composer. He excels in a wide range of styles, from early to contemporary music, always looking to infuse his playing with historically informed practices. No other organist in the last decade has played as many contemporary work premieres as Ericsson; he has worked closely with John Cage, György Ligeti and Olivier Messiaen to better understand their artistic visions. As a post-avant-garde composer, Hans-Ola Ericsson blends existing sound material with the unheard in his works. This technique can be observed in Ericsson’s organ mass, relating the sounds of Arp Schnitger organs. He was referred to as the prototypical organist of the 21st century, his music displaying a versatility focused on every sound and on its compositional context."

Hans-Ola Ericsson (born 1958 in Stockholm) is a Swedish organist and composer.

Ericsson studied church music at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm, and continued his organ and composition studies at the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg in Germany.

He also studied privately with Luigi Nono and Olivier Messiaen.

Most influential among his composition teachers have been Klaus Huber, Brian Ferneyhough, and Nono.

Ericsson's earlier works were closer in style to those of Klaus Huber or Luigi Nono, but this compositional approach became restrictive, and Ericsson went through a period of compositional silence in between 1984/85 and 1999.

Ericsson's more recent music draws more freely from various styles, and concentrates, to a certain extent, on musical timbre and space, as well as referential ideas in music.

For example, his work "The Four Beast' Amen", for organ and electronics, begins with the organ in dialogue with recordings of organs from Hamburg, Stade, Norden, Cappel and Lüdingworth.

The style refers to older organ works, such as those of Frescobaldi or Buxtehude, but with all of the organs overlapping in such a way that everything is blurry.

The second movement changes completely in style, concentrating on sounds created by the wind chest of the organ.

Some of the later movements of this work focus on differences in tuning between some of the organs that we heard in the beginning.

Hans-Ola Ericsson has made numerous recordings including a highly acclaimed complete recording of Olivier Messiaen´s organ music.

He has made numerous recordings including a highly acclaimed complete recording of Messiaen's organ music, being awarded the Swedish Gramophone Prize annually between 1985 and 1988.

Hans-Ola Ericsson is also engaged in organ-restoration projects as well as holding courses in Europe and the USA.

He served as the project leader of the "Övertorneå-project", an exhaustive documentation, reconstruction and restoration of the most important instrument of the Swedish Baroque, the organ of the German Church in Stockholm.

He has also led the work with the Woehl-built organ in Studio Acusticum concert hall, Piteå.

He has held guest professorships in Riga, Copenhagen, Helsinki and Amsterdam, as well as lectured and performed at a large number of leading organ festivals and academic symposia worldwide, persistently campaigning for the quality of new music and its right to be heard.

Harald Vogel writes the following about Hans-Ola Ericsson:

H-O Ericsson: Melody to the Memory of a Lost Friend XIII, for organ and tape (1985)

In 1988, Ericsson was appointed professor of organ repertoire playing at the Piteå School of Music, a department of the Luleå University of Technology.

In 1989, Hans-Ola Ericsson was appointed professor at the Academy of Music in Piteå and at the University of Luleå.

In the summer of 1990 he was instructor at the summer course for new music in Darmstadt and was awarded the prestigious Kranichsteiner Musikpreis.

In 1996 Hans-Ola Ericsson was appointed permanent guest professor at the Hochschule für Künste in Bremen, Germany.

In 1996, he was appointed visiting professor at the University of the Arts Bremen and in 2011, professor of organ at the Schulich School of Music at McGill University in Montreal, Canada.

Today, he is in high demand as a concert organist, a composer, a teacher and a consultant for organ restoration work.

In 1999 the influential German magazine Die Zeit named this complete recording one of the 111 most important recordings for the next millennium (http://www.zeit.de/1999/01/111_Platten_fuer_das_naechste_Jahrtausend).

Music from the 20th Century has been in focus for Ericsson’s recordings, mostly on the Scandinavian label BIS, however also recordings of organ and chamber music from the romantic and the baroque era have been very well received.

Sheng (Malmö Audioproduktion MAP R 8606)

Together with Helén Jahren, oboe.

B Hambraeus: Sheng

J Johansson: Einige Veränderungen II R Martinsson: Lontano

Organo con forza (Phono Suecia PS CD 31, double CD)

In the spring of 2000 he was named a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music and he received the Swedish Society of Composers interpretation prize in 1999.

He was from 2002 until 2006 Principal Guest Organist of the Lahti Organ Festival in Finland.

From 2005 he is artistic consultant for the Bodø International Organ Festival in Norway.

In 2011 he was appointed professor of organ at the McGill University’s Schulich School of Music.

Ericsson has given concerts throughout Europe as well as in Japan and the USA and Canada.

He is probably most known for his interpretations of contemporary organ literature, and a notable interpreter of the music of Messiaen.

He has worked namely to restore an organ dating back to the 17th century sitting in the German Church in Stockholm.

His interpretations are well documented on numerous recordings, including the recording of Olivier Messiaen’s complete organ works.