Jonas Nordberg

Swedish lutenist and guitarist Jonas Nordberg belongs to the new generation of exciting musicians in the field of plucked instruments. A graduate of the Mozarteum University Salzburg (MA Summa cum Laude 2011), he has an active schedule as a performing artist on lutes and historical guitars. Thereby his repertoire ranges from early renaissance lute music to contemporary soundscape explorations. In between we find solo repertoire for renaissance lute, baroque lute, baroque guitar, early 19th century guitar and theorbo.

In 2015 his solo debut album for Eudora Records, ‘Music by de Visée, Weiss & Dufaut’ was released and has since received raving reviews worldwide. It was chosen amongst the top five classical albums of the year by Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter. In 2017 ‘Heroines of love and loss’ was released on BIS Records featuring music by female composers and fictive heroines together with Ruby Hughes, soprano and Mime Yamahiro-Brinkmann, baroque cello. It has received brilliant reviews and was given a Diapason d’Or award. He has also recorded three albums for BIS Records with recorder player Dan Laurin, covering the flute sonatas by Swedish composer Johan Helmich Roman on two albums as well as recorder concertos by Antonio Vivaldi on another release. 2018-2019 will bring further recordings of solo albums and chamber music for BIS Records.

As a continuo player Nordberg has performed with Concerto Köln, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Concerto Copenhagen, Drottningholm Baroque Ensemble, Rebaroque, Mozarteum Orchester Salzburg, Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Swedish Wind Ensemble, Ensemble 1B1 & Aalborg Symphony Orchestra amongst several other period instrument chamber groups.

He has an extensive collaboration with choreographer Kenneth Kvarnström, resulting in several large scale stage works in recent years. The meeting between baroque music and contemporary dance gives the music a new dimension, a visual chamber music partner for the solo pieces and a way to communicate through physical gestures and impulses. In 2013 Nordberg and Kvarnström teamed up for a critically acclaimed duet, sofa(r), combining elements of dance, baroque music for lute and theorbo, electronic music and speech in a dark work exploring death. This also marked his debut as a dancer.