Pär Lindgren

Swedish composer Pär Lindgren (b.1952).
He studied composition with Gunnar Bucht and Lars-Gunnar Bodin at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm, where he himself has been a member of the teaching staff since 1980. In 1998 he was appointed professor of composition. Initially his composing was mainly directed towards electronic music. Works such as Electric Music and the triptych The Room, The Second Room and Houdini attracted attention at an early stage.
Lindgren prefers to write for orchestra or for larger chamber music combinations, and the music can be characterised as an investigation of the body of sound - it can be described more clearly with the help of physical metaphors: the works take on sculptural features, the movements are refined and well choreographed within a clearly defined harmonic framework. But behind this slender-limbed and controlled first impression, the fine motor coordination appears on closer examination to quiver and vibrate. Although he varies his compositional method from one work to the next, something of this Lindgrenian profile still remains.
Pär Lindgren was awarded the Christ Johnson Music Prize in 1987 for Shadowes that in Darknesse Dwell, and for Oaijé in 1996.