4 Sept 2007

Research on Akos Rozmann

This week at EMS, we have the company of Gergely Loch, an enthusiastic musicology student of the Franz Liszt Academy of Budapest, Hungary. Gergely´s aim is to perform research on Akos Rozmann, one of the most prominent composers of electroacoustic music in Sweden. Akos Rozmann, originally from Hungary but residing in Sweden since the 1970s, sadly died two years ago. Up until his death, he was one of the composers who worked the most frequently here at EMS. For a long time he was an organist at the Catholic Church, where he also had his subterranean sound studio. He stopped writing instrumental music very early on as a composition student and left us a great number of electroacoustic works such as Impulsioni, Twelve stations, Images of dream and death to name but a few. His music is strongly emotional, and the richness of the compositional material has in most cases led to long gripping developments, leaving the listener both shaken and stirred. Mass, first performed in 2004 at the German Church in Stockholm, is several hours long and it took five days to perform it in its entirety. Apart from the music we know, Rozmann left a considerable amount of tapes, diaries etc. which we are delighted to know that Gergely Loch is going to study while preparing his PhD. This will be time well spent.

/Isabel