The Duo.
The two musicians met for the first time in the summer of 2002 at a swedish music festival in Dellen, in the beautiful region of Hälsingland. They both took part in a concert with the Stockholm baroque orchestra, and enjoyed very much playing together. Soon they had their first own concert, at Gunnebo Castle outside Gothenburg. In -06 they got together to record a CD, which was released in april 2007, and a tour to Japan followed in october -07. For 2008, concerts in Sweden and Germany are scheduled.
Torbjörn Näsbom.
Torbjörn was born and grew up in the province of Uppland and learnt to play the violin from his father. From early childhood, he was lucky enough to meet and play together with great folk music fiddlers as Viksta Lasse and Eric Sahlström. Later, after a classical education on the violin at the Music Conservatory of the Swedish Radio at Edsberg and at the Royal Conservatory at Brussels, Torbjörn was employed in the Umeå Symphony Orchestra at the Norrlandsoperan.
As a side activity, he also started to play the nyckelharpa. This instrument, however, took up more and more of his time, and proved to be his destiny. Torbjörn plays folk music, of course, but also try to mix his harp with classical and particularly baroque music as well. He has been a soloist with several Swedish symphony and baroque orchestras and have gone on tour in Europe and the U.S. with the mezzo-soprano Ann-Sofie von Otter.
Andreas Edlund.
Andreas got hooked on early music during his education to clarinet and music theory teacher at the School of Music and Drama at Gothenburg University. Because of his keen interest in figured bass¹, a discipline he had earlier encountered in his composition studies, his piano professor promptly sent him to the harpsichord department to satisfy his curiosity about basso continuo and early music. Experience of renaissance and medieval music came from the Gothenburg ensemble Convivium Musicum, where he devoted himself to historical keyboard and wind instruments, hurdy-hurdy and harp. A bit of baroque bassoon came along on the way.
The Goldberg Variations eventually made Andreas focus on the harpsichord. His years as a harpsichord student were crowned in -99 when he was selected for the EUBO (European Union Baroque Orchestra), that year directed by Goebel, Goodman, Koopman and Mortensen.
Today Andreas is musical director for the baroque opera ensemble Utomjordiska and plays continuo on harpsichord and organ in various connections, since '07 at the Drottningholms Slottsteater. Solo performances from time to time. He is still active as clarinet player, primarily in the fields of Contemporary, Balkan, Klezmer and World Music.
Nakata Art Museum, oct'o7
¹ Figured bass (or basso continuo) is today used in music theory, but in the baroque era it was a practical playing tradition based on improvisation. The player was supposed to play the bass line and add harmony, chords and improvised counterpoints.