Members

Sara Hammarström is one of our most sought-after flautists, with a diverse repertoire of both solo and chamber music works. She has been involved in a large number of collaborations with composers and ensembles, both in Sweden and abroad, and her genuine interest in contemporary music has resulted in over two hundred first performances.

After receiving a soloist diploma at the Royal Academy of Music in Stockholm (1996), Hammarström studied further in Glasgow, Paris and Cologne, among others with the conductor and composer Peter Eötvös, as well as with the flutist Aurele Nicolet.

Together with the quartet Pärlor för Svin and the ensemble Norrbotten Neo, Sara Hammarström has made a series of recordings that have received glowing reviews. Together with these ensembles, she has also been awarded several prizes and awards, such as the Nordic Composers Council prize, the Kristall prize and the FST interpreter prize twice. As a soloist, Hammarström has appeared with several of the Swedish orchestras, and most recently received a standing ovation when, at very short notice, she premiered the flute concerto by Sven-David Sandström that we will hear tonight.

Hammarström currently works as flutist in ensemble neo, as well as solo flutist in Västerås Sinfonietta.

Robert Ek has, as a clarinetist, specialised in contemporary music as a chamber musician and soloist. With great curiosity and dedication, he works together with composers to develop the repertoire for his instrument. He has recorded around 20 records and premiered a large number of works as soloist and chamber musician.

Since 2007 he is a member of the acclaimed ensemble Norrbotten NEO which premieres a number of works by Swedish and international composers every year. In 2012, the ensemble received fst’s interpretation award for their work with contemporary music. Robert has performed and collaborated with musicians, composers and conductors from different parts of the world. He likes to work in the border country between arts and has worked closely not only with composers but also with writers, choreographers and filmmakers. Robert has toured Europe, North America, Asia and Australia and played at festivals such as Warsaw autumn, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, June in Buffalo, Faithful (Berlin), ISCM world music days in Stockholm and Tallinn, Musica Viva (Lisbon), Beijing Contemporary Music Festival.

In recent years, his work on developing the repertoire has focused on live electronics and developing the clarinet as an augmented instrument. Robert is also a PhD candidate at LTU since 2019. At the core of this doctoral project lies the iterative process where new electro-acoustic instrumental systems are designed and then used and tested in collaborative processes and in artistic practice. This oscillation is well described by Per Anders Nilsson (2011) as “design time” and “play time”. Where “design time deals with conception, representation, and articulation of ideas and knowledge outside time … and play time deals with embodied knowledge, bodily activity, and interaction in real time” (Nilsson, 2011). Adding to this framework is the reflective process of observing and analysing how the systems behave and interact with the performer. Performing with these systems requires a close relationship and intimate understanding of the system and the relationship between body and technology.

Daniel Saur is one of the founders of the professional percussion ensemble Global Percussion Network (GPN). With GPN, he has performed, given seminars and masterclasses around Europe, North America and Asia, including radio and television broadcasts in Sweden, the USA and Japan. GPN has performed at festivals worldwide, premiered countless works, played entire concerts on instruments made of ice and even performed on a Swedish Air Force fighter jet.

Since 2008, Daniel has been a member of Norrbotten-NEO, one of Sweden’s leading ensembles for contemporary music. The core of NEO consists of seven musicians; flute, clarinet, percussion, piano, violin, viola and cello. The ensemble’s focus is to commission new works by prominent composers in Sweden and Europe. Daniel’s employment at NEO also includes a job as timpanist in the Norrbotten Chamber Orchestra and percussionist in the Piteå Chamber Opera. Because of these diverse ensembles, Daniel regularly performs with everything from Mozart symphonies to contemporary music and multimedia opera performances.

As a soloist, Daniel regularly commissions and premieres new works, both for solo percussion and for percussion with pre-recorded soundtrack/electronics. He promotes the presence of percussion in the chamber music genre through close collaboration with composers.

Since 2001, Daniel has been the leader of percussion studies at the University of Music in Piteå (Luleå University of Technology). Before that, he led the percussion institute at Framnäs Folkhögskola in the years 2004-2007. In 2007, Daniel spent six months as an artist in residence at the Universidad de Ciencias y Artes de Chiapas (UNICACH) in Chiapas, Mexico’s southernmost state.

As a composer, Daniel has received numerous commissions. In his compositions, he often focuses on mallet instruments and percussion-based chamber music. His compositions have been premiered in Sweden, the USA, Argentina, Japan and Mexico. Daniel’s CD “Scattered Thoughts” containing 6 works for percussion, was released in 2015, and “The Labyrinth” with music for clarinet and percussion will be launched in 2020.

Daniel is a proud advocate of Zildjian cymbals and Innovative Percussion mallets.

Nikolay Shugaev leads an active performing career as a soloist, chamber musician and conductor, making major concert appearances throughout Europe, North and South America and Asia.

Nikolay is a chief conductor of the State Academic North Caucus Philharmonic Orchestra.

He completed his master’s degree at Moscow State Conservatory with professor Natalia Shakhovskaya and his soloist diploma at the Conservatorio della Svizzera Italiana in Lugano with professor Enrico Dindo. He’s currently finishing his master’s degree in Symphony and Opera conducting with Petter Sundkvist at LTU (Sweden).
He makes regular appearances at international festivals such as Ceresio Estate, Società dei Concerti di Milano, Società del quartetto, Lugano Festival, Rome Chamber Music Festival, Mantova Chamber Music Festival, Lucerne Festival, LAC Lugano, MiTo and many others. Since 2017 he has been deputy artistic director of Habana Clásica festival in Cuba. He also performs regularly in such prestigious halls as the Great Hall of Tchaikovsky Moscow State Conservatory, La Sala Verdi Milano, LAC Lugano, Concertgebouw Amsterdam and Carnegie Hall.

Nikolay is principal cello of Ensemble NEO (Sweden) and teaches cello at Luleå University. Nikolay has recorded numerous CD for label Naxos and Gallo (Switzerland).
His recording with Italian cello concertos “Malipiero, Casella, Ghedini” (Naxos 8.574393) with Rostov Symphony and conductor Valentin Uryupin has become a highlight of the season, highly acclaimed by musical critics such as gramophone.co.uk and rivista “Musica”.

Shugaev plays a cello made by Igor Moroder (Milano).