The 2023 Weiwuying International Music Festival at the National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts, Taiwan, features a special focus on the music of Anders Hillborg this April.

On 14 April David Robertson conducts the National Symphony Orchestra of Taiwan in the national premiere of Hillborg’s Liquid Marble. Hillborg’s 1994 orchestral work was premiered in Stockholm Karis Orkester Norden and Guido Ajmone-Marsán; it received its UK premiere at the BBC Proms in 1997 from Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, who recorded the work together in 2003. Hillborg discusses the background to the molten 10-minute piece, which was influenced by Iannis Xenakis’ use of string glissandi and a clarinettist Hillborg heard on the Stockholm metro, here.

On 19 April Clement Power conducts the Weiwuying Contemporary Music Ensemble in Hillborg’s 2010 ensemble work Vaporised Tivoli, a frenzied and hallucinatory 10-minute invocation of the funfairs from which the piece takes its name. Vaporised Tivoli was premiered in 2010 by Ensemble Modern and Franck Ollu at the Sacrum Profanum Festival in Poland; in 2013 it was recorded by the New York Philharmonic and Alan Gilbert. Its unsettled and sinister mood is partly inspired by the ghoulish vision of a travelling carnival depicted in Ray Bradbury’s 1962 horror novel Something Wicked This Way Comes, which Hillborg read as a teenager. 

On 24 April in the closing concert of the festival Magnus Holmander is soloist in the Taiwan premiere of Hillborg’s Peacock Tales (Millennium Version) for clarinet and orchestra (2000); he is joined by conductor Chien Wen-pin and the Kaohsiung Symphony Orchestra. See and hear a short preview of the 16-minute piece at the festival here.

Peacock Tales (1998-2003) is one of Hillborg’s most playful and popular works, its various versions receiving over 100 performances worldwide, from conductors including Gustavo Dudamel, Osmo Vänskä, Sakari Oramo and James Gaffigan. Its original incarnation saw clarinettist Martin Fröst performing the piece in a mask, with highly theatrical dance and mime elements. Its title reflects the self-conscious virtuosity and flamboyance of the dazzling solo part. In September 2022 the Vienna Philharmonic premiered a new version of the concerto for soprano saxophone at the Lucerne Festival, conducted by Esa Pekka-Salonen with Valentine Michaud as soloist.