Ingenting utanför (Nothing beyond)

“Ingenting utanför / Nothing Beyond” is another collaboration between Mårten Jansson and the Swedish poet Einar Askestad. This a cappella choral work deals with sorrow and loss. After a forceful, harmonically ambiguous section and a clear break in the music, the piece ends with a comforting decrescendo of reconciliation. It was commissioned by the Uppsala female choir “La Cappella” and is dedicated to its choral director Tony Margeta.

“My music is my own and I have never tried to be original. That has always been my motto and I have only tried to use music to express all the feelings which life has to offer. This has led people to describe my music as ‘so sad that it sounds like birds who have lost their wings’ but also as ‘the happiest classical music that we have ever heard‘.

My compositions are almost all sacred. They express not only my own faith but also my appreciation and respect for the timeless texts that have been used for centuries and centuries.“

Mårten Jansson (b. 1965), elected member of the Föreningen svenska tonsättare (the Society of Swedish Composers), graduated from the Royal College of Music, Stockholm (KHM) with an MFA degree in Music Education, Dalcroze Eurhythmics and Voice. For more than ten years he was the music director and conductor of “Carmen”, one of the most prominent womens’ vocal ensembles in Sweden. He currently teaches choral conducting and music theory as well as giving vocal tuition at the Bolandgymnasiet and Musikskolan in his home town of Uppsala.