Eric Ericsons Kammarkör will perform at Gävle Konserthus on Sunday, October 18, 2026 at 16.00 under the direction of its new chief conductor Justin Doyle. The concert in Gevaliasalen is part of Doyle’s first production in the role and unites choral music and solo cello with a poetic framework drawn from Nobel laureate Tomas Tranströmer.
The program is titled “Horisonter – livet nu, livet efter detta” (Horizons – life now, life after this). The starting point is Tranströmer’s poetry, especially the poem “Gläntan”, where questions of mortality, meaning, and reconciliation form a unifying thread. Instead of focusing on a single musical era, the program approaches these themes through works from different centuries. Renaissance vocal music is placed side by side with 20th-century and contemporary choral traditions.
A new chapter with contrasting musical voices
At its center is Ildebrando Pizzetti’s Messa di Requiem, dated to 1922 in the program notes. The work is written for choir a cappella and brings older church musical traditions into a personal musical language. Dense vocal harmonies and contrapuntal writing give form to expressions of grief, prayer, and consolation. Without instrumental accompaniment, the choir alone carries both the musical structure and the emotional weight.
This makes the work a suitable focal point in a program centering on the boundary between life and death. The requiem tradition gives these questions a liturgical form, while the concert’s poetic framework places them in a broader human search for understanding. The connection is thematic: Tranströmer’s poetry opens a way into the program’s questions, without each work having to express them in the same manner.
Choral music by Alonso Lobo, John Tavener, and Sven-David Sandström broadens the perspective. Their inclusion in the program links the polyphony of the Renaissance with later approaches to sacred and contemplative music. Across this timespan, attention is drawn to how composers use the communal resources of the human voice to explore spiritual subjects, even as they differ in their treatment of texture, musical time, and expression.
Cellist Jakob Koranyi provides an instrumental counterpoint with György Ligeti’s sonata for solo cello. The two movements combine lyrical reflection with rhythmic intensity and demanding instrumental technique. Against the choir’s collective sound, a lone string instrument is set, giving the expression a different form. The contrast also creates a second musical focal point: the physical presence of a solo musician alongside the ensemble’s blended voices.
For Doyle, the October production marks the beginning of his assignment as chief conductor of Eric Ericsons Kammarkör for the 2026/2027 season. The British conductor has been chief conductor and artistic director of RIAS Kammerchor Berlin since 2017 and brings extensive international experience in choral and opera work to his new position. In this initial program, contrasting eras and musical languages are encompassed within a coherent thematic whole.
The ensemble he joins has a history spanning more than eight decades. The choir was founded by Eric Ericson in 1945 and developed an international profile through vocal precision, tonal flexibility, and a repertoire covering both early and contemporary music. This continuing breadth, from Renaissance works to newly composed scores, provides an established basis for the range in this production.
The October concerts take the program to three Swedish cities, with Gävle as the final stop:
- Norrköping – October 15, 2026.
- Stockholm – October 17, 2026.
- Gävle – Sunday, October 18, 2026 at 16.00, Gevaliasalen, Gävle Konserthus.
In Gävle, the combination of Pizzetti’s Requiem for choir, Ligeti’s solitary cello voice, and music from several centuries gives Doyle’s first production a clear artistic focus: different musical responses to mortality, consolation, and the search for meaning.
