Born in Karlskoga on the 20th February, 1931. Margareta Hallin is perhaps best known as an opera singer with an extremely successful career. In 1966 she was appointed Singer to the Royal Court of Sweden, in 1972 she was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music and in 1976 she was awarded the Litteris et Artibus medal.
With a wealth of experience as a singer behind her, she began composing in the mid-80s. As a composer she is self-taught, but she has received important encouragement from Eberhard Eyser, among others.
Her début as a composer came in 1986 with a performance of her songs at the Drottningholm Court Chapel. The texts were taken from such poets as Nils Ferlin, Harry Martinson, Werner Aspenström and Alf Henrikson. August Strindberg is another author to whom she often returns, for instance in the chamber opera Miss Julie (1990) which was staged at the Confidence Theatre, (restaged in 1994) and The Stronger One (1991), which was performed in the Rotunda at the Royal Opera in Stockholm. In 1993 the Swedish National Theatre Centre toured Sweden with the same work, which was also performed in a Danish translation in Copenhagen in 1996.
Margareta Hallin’s composing has naturally often focused on vocal music, where her own experience has been an invaluable asset. She has also performed her own compositions on several occasions. Photo Lars Torndahl