Örjan Sandred is GroundSwell’s guest curator for the 2014-15 season.

Örjan Sandred is a composer of both instrumental and computer music. His instrumental works reach from music for Symphony Orchestra to solo instruments. Several of his later compositions show an increased interest for expanding the expressitivity of acoustic instruments with live electronics, for example “Ice Fog” for saxophone, piano and live electronics and “Cracks and Corrosion II” for guitar and live electronics. He has also composed music for the Yamaha WX5 Wind Controller as well as music for tape alone.

Sandred is currently a Professor in Composition at the University of Manitoba in Canada, where he founded Studio FLAT – a studio for computer music research and production. Previous to his current position he was teaching composition and electro-acoustic music at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm 1998-2005. He is a frequent guest lecturer around the world. He has given seminars at Harvard University, at Conservatoire National Superieur de Musique in Paris, at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, at the Bartok Seminar in Szombathely (Hungary), at Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Wien, at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, at McGill University in Montreal, at the Interdisciplinary Centre for Computer Music Research at the University of Plymouth and other places.

Many of Sandred’s pieces are results of his search for new methods of composition. During 1999 he worked as a Composer on Research in the Musical Representation Team at IRCAM. He has a particular interest in Rule-based Computer Assisted Composition techniques, and he has published several articles on the outcome of his ongoing research (for example in Computer Music Journal 2010 and Contemporary Music Review 2009).

Sandred’s music is regularly performed in many countries around the world. Recent performances include the premiere of “Ice Fog” for saxophone, piano and live electronics at Auditorium Saint Germain in Paris 2011, the Shanghai International Electroacoustic Music Week 2011 and the GroundSwell New Music Series in Winnipeg 2012.

Sandred’s music is available on the CD “Cracks and Corrosion”, released on the Navona label in 2009.