Who are you, Dan?
Thanks for asking! I am a male Swede, born in the nordiest of the northern Sweden in the dark and cold autumn of the great year 1966. It tends to be a while ago but I am still hanging in there. I hope! I have two fantastic redheaded and beloved kids born 1999 and 2001. They are also into music, the girl A is a great clarinet player and boy S is a groovy bass player. I live in one of the southern suburbs of Stockholm and spend essentially all my time outside my daytime work on music - as a musician and as a writer both on a free-lance basis.

The writer
This site is primarly about arranging so let's start there. Read more about my thoughts about arranging here. Other than what is written there I can say that I have liked arranging since I was a kid. During grade school and collage I made arrangements from time to time, mostly vocal arrangements for SATB choir. During my university years I spent some considerable time with different student theatre groups, in the beginning as saxophone player but gradually turning into writing and conducting. It was interesting tasks since the orchestras were fairly ambitiuos containing strings, flutes, oboe, basson, clarinets, saxophones, trumpets, trombones, tuba sometimes, french horns sometimes, percussion, keyboard, guitar, bass and drums. Later I wrote some sporadic smaller group charts and a few big band charts. Since about 10 years I have made the writing to something more serious and also started using Finale in a more structured way. I need to write to feel good. Except for working in panic towards deadlines, writing music is among the best things I can do to reach calmness and the meaning with life.

The saxophonist
I am first and foremost a saxophone player. My main horn is my beloved Selmer Mark VI tenor - this is my curvy middle-aged woman. This is the one I use for smaller groups, horn sections and when practicing. I started as an alto player and still my alto is a very close relationship, perhaps the closest anyway. I should practice more on it! I have since many years also owned a soprano, but it isn't until the last 10 years or so that I have really started to enjoy playing the soprano....might have to do with replacing my old shitty Corton with a great Yamaha soprano. Baritone hasn't really reached my hoods yet - I did it as a student but it never really stuck. Maybe later. But again - the saxophones are my main interest and playing on them my closest identity. It is as simple as that :-)

The pianist
I have played piano since I was about 2 years of age. I know there was a discussion between my mother and my father when I was a toddler. My mother asked what they should buy as a christmas present for me, and my - as usual a little bit tired - father said something like "it doesn't matter what we give the kid, he's just at the piano anyway". Well I think I got my christmas present anyway. But I have since then liked to be behind the keyboard. I always liked to experiment with harmonics even though the first 20 years or so was spent on classical piano. But after the last performances, including  Rachmaninov:s C# minor prelude and Bartóks Balada, I realized that the saxophone was anyway my main instrument and that piano is a jazz instrument for me - a laboratory of harmonics! Many years I only played for myself, but gradually I got gigs playing covers as a keyboard player and last 10 years I have found out that practicing jazz piano - not only harmonics but also linear solo playing - is something that works well. I do regularly take gigs as a backup jazz piano player, but I don't feel comfortable forming a piano trio other than for hidden pleasure. Dedicated jazz piano players should to that.

The leader
I have tended to find myself in the leader role quite frequently in my life. Sometimes because I have wanted it myself, sometimes because others have invited me. I have many times been leading choir but never as a permanent leader but rather as a stand-in for rehearsals and services in church. In my daytime work I have worked many years as a project manager, during the university years I had the role as chairman for student associations, and I have also since long time lead my own quartet. Over the last years I have had the role as musical director of the great Carefree Big Band, a role that suits me perfectly and having a band on a regular basis give me time and opportunities to try out new charts and also experiment with leader styles. My goal as a leader is that everyone should feel as happy and comfortable as possible, but always with a long time goal to strive for so that the overall quality in all aspects is always increasing.

The singer
It is perhaps a bit pretentious to call myself a singer and I am not, at least not in the "solo singer" meaning. Nevertheless, I have been singing essentially my entire life. The choir, as a musical ensemble, is very natural and well-known to me and I love to sing in good quality choirs, even though I have found it necessary to put this activity lower in favour of the saxophones, the writing and the big band leadership. I started to sing in the age of 8 years, and 13 years old I was accepted as a student in Adolf Fredriks music school where the choir singing is the "vertebra". I continued to sing in choirs after graduating from collage; 1987 - 1993 in Riddarholmens chamber choir with Thomas Caplin and Per-Gunnar Alldahl, and 1993 - 2001 in S:t Jacobs chamber choir with Gary Graden. Time became a scarce resource when my second child was born so I quit being a permanent member at that time, but since then I have been asked to strenghten the bass section for larger work, such as Mahlers 2:nd and 8:th symphony, Brahms Requiem, Bach:s S:t John and S:t Metthew passions, Bach:s  minor mass, Mozarts Requiem and C minor mass, Rachmaninov:s Vigilia mass and newly written music by for instance Steve Dobrogosz, Jonas Forsell, Sven-David Sandström, Anders Hillborg and Thomas Jennefäldt. My voice is in the lowest bass range ("Bass II").

	Photo: Erik Rothman
Photo: Erik Rothman

Back to main arr page