Born on the 21st February, 1935 and died on the 2nd June, 1996. Wallgren belonged to that relatively rare group of musicians who cross the barriers that are usually erected between musical genres smoothly and easily. He was a composer, jazz pianist and theatre musician, he organised musical functions and ran a record company, Dragon Records, as well as producing night radio programmes for the classical music channel.
Added to all this are his achievements in the field of art music. He received his first piano lessons from Gerda Swedjemark and as a young boy was equally at home with Beethoven and Bebop. Wallgren has described how his encounter with the music of the American composer Alan Hovhaness in the 1960s acted as a catalyst, and Hovhaness became his composition teacher. He developed a tonal language of his own which was mainly based on modal harmonies.
His works include the opera Balagantjik (1985) to a libretto of his own, the much-talked-about requiem För levande och döda (For the Living and the Dead, 1990) to texts by Tomas Tranströmer, music for the stage, works for jazz band, choral music and songs, string quartets and works for piano.
During a course at the Malmö College of Music shortly before his death he said: “I am convinced that the old breach between jazz and notated art music will disappear. I believe that we can create a climate something like it was in Bach’s time and earlier; every professional musician improvised and composed and could also play other composers’ music.“ In his own life work Jan Wallgren put these ideals into practice.