Rolf Wallin

Composer Rolf Wallin combines mathematical approaches, such as the use of fractals, with more freely creative inspirations. Some of his works include aspects of performance art. Wallin was born in Oslo on September 7, 1957. He studied there with Finn Mortensen and Olav Anton Thommessen, moving on later to the University of California; there, his principal teachers were Roger Reynolds and Vinko Globokar. Wallin also had influences from jazz and avant-garde rock in his early background. He scored a breakthrough in 1987 with his work ...though what made it has gone for mezzo-soprano and piano, based on a poem by Osip Mandelstam; the piece, which combined ideas from Ligeti and Messiaen with fresh approaches, won a Norwegian Society of Composers Award. The work was recorded by the Cikada Ensemble in 1992, and Wallin's music soon began to find other performances and recording opportunities, including some outside Norway. In 1991, Wallin developed what he called his crystal chord technique, in which three intervals are repeated in a crystal-like texture. The technique makes possible what Wallin has called consonant atonality. He has also used fractals and other computer-generated methods in his music, situating them in a dialectic with freer approaches. By the late '90s, Wallin was applying his methods to larger forms; his Clarinet Concerto won the coveted Nordic Council Music Prize in 1998. A few of his works have performance art elements; Strange News (2007), which won the Edvard Prize, included electronics and dealt with the use of child soldiers in Uganda and Congo. However, most of his music is for traditional acoustic instruments. In later years, Wallin tended toward a more free treatment of the crystal chords and other mathematical techniques. Wallin is the composer of an opera, Elysium, which premiered in Oslo in 2016. His 2018 violin concerto Whirld was included on an album of his works issued by the Ondine label in 2024; by that time, more than 30 of Wallin's works had been recorded. ~ James Manheim, Rovi