Ragnar Søderlind

Ragnar Søderlind (born June 27, 1945) is a Norwegian composer. He has written ballets and operas, and for the concert hall, programmatic works based on poems.

Biography

Ragnar studied with Conrad Baden in Oslo and with Erik Bergman and Joonas Kokkonen at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki. This was followed by studies in conducting at the Norwegian State Academy of Music where he is currently a faculty member.

As a composer, Søderlind initially composed orchestral works which were strongly influenced by late Romanticism and early 20th-century European music. His style has become more advanced over the years, yet throughout he has been a master of orchestration and has maintained his personal stamp on sound. In additon to orchestral music, his output includes incidental music for plays, ballets and operas. He has also arranged a considerable ammount of music, including several works by Edvard Grieg, and he has recently written an opera that includes Grieg’s music for "Olav Tryggvason ".

Discography

Søderlind's Violin Concerto has been recorded together with Johan Kvandal's on the Centaur label.

ources

*Arvid O. Vollsnes. The "New Grove Dictionary of Opera", edited by Stanley Sadie (1992), ISBN 0-333-73432-7 and ISBN 1-56159-228-5