More on Magnus

Considering coming to our “Composer Portraits” concert Thursday night? Find out more about Magnus Lindberg, the composer we’ll be profiling, in this article in Sunday’s Boston Globe.

This 49-year-old Finnish composer is a major voice in European music, but one that is heard all too rarely in this country…He wields a technical arsenal of enormous sophistication but his music never comes across as arid or brainy. Saturated with color and textural detail and brimming with a remarkable density of sound, his best works address themselves to a broad audience without descending into a pallid or pandering neo-Romanticism. He is a master of concluding strokes that unlock the mystery of what has just transpired, and few composers can so artfully wed moments of surprise with a forward-rushing sense of destination. And finally, as his various concertos testify, he has created some of the most strikingly virtuosic music for orchestra and solo instruments of the last 20 years.

Read on for more, including thoughts on Lindberg’s early experiences with punk rock and what the northeast corridor has in common with the Silk Road.