I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas.
I'm frightened of the old ones.
— John Cage
about
‘Everything O/Modernt is creation’
Since its inception, O/Modernt has wholeheartedly embraced the world of New Music, engaging in exciting collaborations with a host of composers from around the globe. To date, we have commissioned more than fifty works by early-career artists and internationally celebrated composers, notably Steve Reich and Pēteris Vasks. O/Modernt also hosts occasional composition awards to encourage emerging talents.
A selection of recent commissioning partners include BBC Proms, Radio France, Manchester International Festival, Wigmore Hall, King’s Place London, British Museum, Muziekgebouw aan ‘t IJ, Swedish Chamber Orchestra, Kremerata Baltica, Sinfonietta Riga, Wimbledon International Festival, Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra, Istanbul Music Festival, Fundação Casa da Música, and Vancouver Symphony Orchestra.
O/Modernt exudes creativity from every pore
— Dagens Nyheter
O/Modernt is full of creative energy – like a magical, powerful plant growing in the field of music!
— Erkki-Sven Tüür
Nico Muhly (b.1981) An Archive in Three Parts (Swedish Premiere)*
*Commissioned by the Queen Silvia Concert Hall, O/Modernt, Wigmore Hall, Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra, Heidelberger Frühling, Camerata strumentale di Prato
Nico Muhly’s idea of an archive is not a repository of dusty old materials but a huge zone of possibilities. His imagination was sparked as a child, when he loved to immerse himself in libraries, surrounding himself with heaps of books chosen almost at random. The same sense of excitement drives the contemporary performance practice of early music – a kind of archival scholarship that bursts with human energy.
An Archive in Three Parts is organised as an instrumental path through some choral works by three English Renaissance composers: John Sheppard, Christopher Tye and Thomas Tallis. At the end of the piece a faint fragment of Britten appears, as if at a great distance, in a juxtaposition that underscores the way Muhly’s Archive places ancient music in a modern space.
A key attraction of pre-Baroque music for Muhly lies in its emotional strategies, which are much more oblique than in later music. As he remarks: ‘In Romantic music the journey through climaxes and low points is well signposted. There are verticalities in Renaissance works too, of course – moments of radiant joy followed by descents into aching sorrow – but the narratives are always slightly removed from the roller-coaster intensity of the Romantics.’
Something is lost and something is gained when early vocal music is transferred to instruments alone. For one thing, it is quite possible for today’s instrumentalists to lead their entire professional lives without ever hearing, let alone playing, choral music from the Renaissance. Much of the original performance practice – the unwritten rules and traditions – is accordingly lost in translation. Muhly’s Archive, which is essentially a set of transcriptions enhanced with lighting changes, interposed shimmers and interruptions, takes inspiration from the difficulty by overlaying the Renaissance sounds with performance traditions from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
current commissions
Nico Muhly (b.1981)
An Archive in Three Parts
Year of composition: 2025
Scoring: String Orchestra
Duration: 15 min
Co-commissioners: Queen Silvia Concert Hall, O/Modernt, Wigmore Hall, Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra, Heidelberger Frühling, Camerata strumentale di Prato
Swedish premiere: 2026
Osvaldo Golijov
Concerto Grosso for Violin, Flute, Clarinet and String Orchestra
Year of composition: 2026
Scoring: Violin, Flute, Clarinet and String Orchestra
Duration: ca 20 min
Co-commissioners: O/Modernt, Klassiske Dage Festival, The Knights*
Swedish premiere: 2026/27
* Looking for partners
Cassandra Miller
Violin Concerto
Year of composition: 2026
Scoring: TBC
Duration: ca 15 - 20 min
Co-commissioners: O/Modernt*
Swedish premiere: 2026/27
* Looking for partners
Nicola Campogrande
‘Quattro modi di sorridere’ for String Orchestra
Year of composition: 2022/2023
Scoring: 4, 4, 3, 3, 1
Duration: 9 min
Co-commissioners: O/Modernt, Tuscan Festival
Swedish premiere: 2025
Golfam Khayam
‘Mirror Memory’ for Voice, Violin and String Orchestra
Year of composition: 2024
Scoring: Voice, Violin and String Orchestra
Duration: 25 min
Co-commissioners: O/Modernt, Out of the Box Festival (Munich)
Swedish premieres: 2025
Žibuoklė Martinaitytė
‘Ekaggata’ for Violin and String Orchestra
Year of composition: 2024
Scoring: Violin Solo and String Orchestra
Duration: 23 min
Co-commissioners: O/Modernt, Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra & Lithuanian National Philharmonic
Swedish premiere: 2025
Sauli Zinovjev
Double Concerto for Violin, Piano and String Orchestra
Year of composition: 2022
Scoring: Violin, Piano and String Orchestra
Duration: 23 min
Co-commissioners: O/Modernt, Västerås Sinfonietta, Tapiola Sinfonietta
Swedish premiere: 2024
recent commissions
Steve Reich Jacob’s Ladder (2023)
Sebastian Fagerlund ‘Beneath’ for String Orchestra (2023)
Albert Schnelzer ‘Aksak and Ciphers’ for String Orchestra (2023)
Jill Jarman ‘Lineage’ for String Orchestra (2023)
Krists Auznieks ‘Le livre du silence volant’ for Violin, String Orchestra (2023)
Sebastian Fagerlund ‘Remain’ for Piano Trio (2022)
Dobrinka Tabakova ‘The Patience of Trees’ for Violin, String Orchestra and percussion (2021)
Pēteris Vasks 'In Evening light' for Violin and String Orchestra (2021)
Marcelo Nisinman Gaia Tango for Solo Cello and Chamber Ensemble (2021)
Brett Dean Piano Quartet (2020)
Artur Maskats ‘Summer Dreams’ for Violin, Mezzosoprano and String Orchestra (2020)
Erkki-Sven Tüür ‘Angel’s Share’ for Violin and String Orchestra (2018)
Jörgen Dafgård ‘Eclipse’ for Violin and String Orchestra (2018)
Pawel Łukaszewski Concerto for Violin and String Orchestra (2017)
David Sandström ‘Seven Pieces’ for Violin and Orchestra (2016)
Jill Jarman ‘Mindstream’ for Violin, Marimba and String Orchestra (2015)
Victoria Borisova-Ollas ‘Labyrinths of Love’ for Violin and String Orchestra (2015)
Leonardo Coral Concerto for Violin and Orchestra (2013)
Sverre Indris Joner ‘Con cierto toque de tango’ for Violin and String Orchestra (2013)
Volodymyr Runchak ‘Key to the Treble Clef’ for Violin and String Orchestra (2013)
Albert Schnelzer ‘Coupled Airs’ for Violin and Orchestra (2012)
Sergey Evtushenko ‘Dreaming’ for Violin and String Orchestra (2012)
Tobias Broström ‘Samsara’ for Violin, Marimba and Orchestra (2011)