CARL UNANDER-SCHARIN was born on the 5th January, 1964. He studied at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm and the Stockholm College of Opera. From 1984 to 1991 he studied church music and organ and took part in courses for music teachers and choirmasters at the Royal College of Music. In addition he studied singing with Solwig Grippe, organ with Hans Fagius and Stefan Therstam, conducting with Eric Ericson and Jorma Panula and music theory with Lars-Erik Rosell and Per-Gunnar Alldahl. During this period he was also a member of the Eric Ericson Chamber Choir and the Swedish Radio Choir. From 1991 to 1995 he studied singing with Hans Gertz and Erik Saedén at the Stockholm College of Opera and during the same period he also studied electroacoustic music at EMS (Electronic Music Studio) in Stockholm.

His actual début as a composer came with the song cycle Tx: William Blake (1989), which has been broadcast several times. Since then he has composed music for several dance performances, often in collaboration with his wife, the choreographer Åsa Unander-Scharin. Notable works in this context include I pekfingrets förlängning (1991), the multimedia dance composition Pumpgropen (1992), Spelsinnetur (1994 – five kinetic melodies constructed in collaboration with a choreographer). Fanfar för Form for two Aida-trumpets and tape (1995), commissioned for the 150th jubilee of the Swedish Design Society, has since also been performed together with dance. Unander-Scharin’s dance compositions have been performed at Dansens Hus, the Modern Dance Theatre and the Stockholm College of Dance, at the Dansstation in Malmö and also in Denmark and Finland.

In collaboration with the poet Katarina Frostenson, Carl Unander-Scharin wrote the radio opera Mannen på Sluttningen (1991) which was entered for the Prix Italia in 1992. His opera Tokfursten (1996, based on Elgard Jonsson’s remarkable autobiography) for eight singers and thirteen musicians caused a considerable stir at its first performance at Vadstena Castle. The opera was also performed in 1998, the year that Stockholm was Cultural Capital of Europe. During 1996 and 1997 Figures in a landscape – a song cycle for the radio medium to texts by Ingamaj Beck was written and realised. The work was constructed around nine artists and their special way of using their voices.

Carl Unander-Scharin divides his time between composing and singing: a double role that influences his composing and has given him a special feeling for the human voice – its different timbres and expressive potential. He focuses on the “dramatic” element of the voice, often in an electroacoustic context, combining electroacoustic and instrumental means.

Photo: Lars Torndahl