I just finished a small piece for string sextet commissioned by Musikk i Finnmark and Ensemble Noor.



I’ve called it the River Styx, named after the river that, according to greek mythology, separates the world from the underworld, and the living from the dead. It’s not a programatic piece. The title is more meant to suggest how even the most immamentely contradictive and abstract things, like life and death, can be both linked and separated with a simple idea, like a river.


A composer needs both to connect and separate musical material in much the same way.
How I do this in practical musical terms, how I link and how I separate ideas that at the same time are different and alike, is ultimately what the River Styx is all about.



First performance is may 17th in St. Petersburg in Russia.



If you happen to be there, come check it out.