Born in Tranås on 19th January 1950, son of Lars Edlund. As a teenager he was a rock’n’roll musician, and the development of this interest in an increasingly experimental direction led him to study composition. He read musicology at Uppsala between 1970 and 1972 before studying composition at the State Academy of Music in Stockholm, where he was taught by Ingvar Lidholm and Arne Mellnäs (1972-1975). He undertook educational visits to the USA and other countries 1977-1978. He was a producer with the Concert Organization Fylkingen 1979 and a member of its Executive Committee 1975-1979. He has also been on the board of the Swedish section of the ISCM since 1978, and a founder member of the "Chamber Music Group" since spring 1983.
Mikael Edlund works in exceedingly minute detail, composing in the field of tension between penetrating reflection and unpredictable but rewarding intuition. Chamber music seems to be the medium which suits him best.
His harmony is on the one hand bright and buoyantly impetuous and, on the other hand, vigorously austere and full of tension. Similarly, his compositions vary in character between the freely improvisational and the insistently, subtly expressive. In everything he does his aim is for articulation, whether in the form of miniature-like solo pieces (the guitar composition "Small Feet"), chamber music such as the string quartet "Brains and Dancin’" or larger ensemble compositions such as "Leave"s for women’s voices, piano, harp and seven percussionists or "Music for Double Wind Quintet".

Hans-Gunnar Peterson
(Photo: Katarina Budrys-Edlund)