Born in Gothenburg on the 6th June, 1944, but grew up in Malmö where he also received his first music lessons and studied clarinet at what was then the Malmö Conservatory of Music.

In connection with further studies in violin and clarinet at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm, a fruitful contact with Siegfried Naumann and Arne Mellnäs led to a keen interest in new music and also at a later stage to composition studies in electro-acoustic music with Lars-Gunnar Bodin. After several years of commitment to new music, including concerts arranged by the Swedish Concert Institute, teaching assignments etc., he was forced to reassess his role as a composer, and he embarked on a new period of study from 1987 to 1991 at the Gothenburg College of Music with Ole Lützow-Holm, Lars Johan Werle and Åke Parmerud. Occasional lessons with Klaus Huber in 1990 were also of importance.

Thomas Liljeholm’s music is dramatic – he talks of “auditory psychology“ – but it still has roots in so-called absolute music. During recent years he has also attracted interest in international circles. In 1991 he became director (and in 2000 orchestral manager) of the chamber orchestra Musica Vitae in Växjö. Here he also founded Media Artes, an experimental forum for innovative artistic manifestations. In 1994 he became a member of the Society of Swedish Composers (FST) and in 2001 was appointed onto the board of the International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM). Liljeholm is also one of the founders of the National Society of Contemporary Art-Music Arrangers (RANK). In 2003 he became artistic director at Contemporary Music and Artists, a centre for modern art music.
Photo Lars Torndahl