Göteborgs Konserthus Stockholm: 18th and 20th centuries

The Swedish guitarist Mats Bergström (b. 1961 in Gävle) grew up in Stockholm in a family of musicians. He worked mainly as a session musician during the 1980s on both electric and acoustic guitar. Two years as a post-graduate student at the Juilliard School in New York at the beginning of the 1990s were followed by a conscious move towards chamber music. Today he is often heard accompanying some of our most prominent singers, or otherwise as a boundless soloist and ensemble player. He has been a frequent guest with Ensemble Modern (Frankfurt) and the London Sinfonietta and has appeared with orchestras such as the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, the Wiener Symphoniker and the BBC Symphony Orchestra (HK Gruber: Busking), the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra (Tan Dun: Guitar Concerto) and the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra (Kurtag: Grabstein für Stephan). Mats Bergström's acclaimed version of Steve Reich's Electric Counterpoint has been presented in concerts at the Royal Albert Hall (BBC Proms 2011) and Festival Hall in London, the Esplanade Concert Hall in Singapore, Grieghallen in Bergen and Stockholm's Konserthus in the presence of the composer himself. In his discography, amongst his works of note are his recording of Bach's Sei Solo - the three sonatas and three partitas for solo violin, transcribed for guitar - which has been praised in the international press and was nominated for a Swedish "Grammis" award, Schubert's Die schöne Müllerin together with Olle Persson, and a series of albums with Georg Riedel on the theme of Songs Without Words.