Per Anders Nilsson is a composer, researcher and improvisational musician on saxophone and live electronics. He studied saxophone and electroacoustic music at the Gothenburg School of Music in the 1980s and received his doctorate in 2011 in the subject of musical performance at the Academy of Music and Drama at Gothenburg University. Per Anders Nilsson is a regular member of several improvisation groups: Beam Stone with Sten Sandell and Raymond Strid; Natural Artefacts with Susanna Lindeborg piano, Merje Kägu guitar, Anton Jonsson drums and Thomas Jäderlund sax; and the electronic duo Pantomorf with Palle Dahlstedt. He is currently also working on a solo album for saxophone and live electronics. He also composes vocal music: e.g. music and libretto for parts of the opera performance Den gudomliga läckan that was performed during Paper Music in Mölndal 2022. Another ongoing project is to record saxophone in various churches that in some way have to do with pilgrimage.

Meditation for organ, saxophone and electronics – suite in seven parts. 

Concert | Mark Tatlow, Per-Anders Nilsson and Johannes Landgren  

The first pilgrim’s word of the festival, simplicity, is reflected in relief against Haydn’s music and leads to a nightly improvisation between Landgren’s organ and Nilsson’s saxophone and electronics, where we take part of a concert permeated by the pilgrim’s theme.  

Inspired by the seven key words of the pilgrimage, Johannes Landgren and Per Anders Nilsson have put together a suite of new, old and borrowed material especially for the Kalv Festival. The music has an ambient and minimalist character, where the listener can choose how to listen; to listen actively and / or let yourself be surrounded by the music and immerse yourself in your own thoughts. And maybe even doze off for a while. The key words of the pilgrim are embodied in seven different pieces / frameworks for improvisation with different characters. The meditation includes the following music: 

Simplicity: Fluctuations is an improvisation for organ and live electronics. The starting point is a floating tone in space, the tone A = 220Hz, a sine wave without harmonics, a kind of sounding elementary particle of which all sound is made, it could not be simpler.  

Freedom: Key Points. A pre-programmed electronic phrase constitutes a fixed point, a sounding anchor to improvise over with the rule of strictly adhering to the prescribed tonal repertoire. Freedom from freedom to choose. 

Silence: In a Silent Way by Joe Zawinul is a modern jazz standard from Miles Davis’ 1969 album of the same name.  

Carefree: All That is the Case by Nilsson is inspired by the first movement of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus: The world is all that is the case. 

Slowness: Improvised organ solo by Johannes Landgren. 

Spirituality: Send your light and your truth is a Gregorian hymn. 

Sharing: I’ve Seen by Lars Gullin is a jazz ballad from the 1964 album Portrait of my Pals. The piece is sometimes performed vocally with the following text from the Old Testament. 

Everything has its time, there is a time for everything under heaven: a time to be born, a time to die, a time to plant, a time to uproot, a time to slay, a time to heal, a time to tear down, a time to build up, a time to weep, a time to smile, a time to mourn, a time to dance, a time to cast stones, a time to gather stones, a time to embrace, a time to refrain from embracing, a time to gain, a time to lose, a time to save, a time to throw, a time to tear apart, a time to sew together, a time to keep silent, a time to speak, a time to love, a time to hate, a time for war, a time for peace. (ch 3, verses 1-8). 

Our hope is that the concert will invite a moment of contemplation, an opportunity to shut out the world and all that is in it, freedom from the freedom of having to do anything.