Anders Hillborg’s music makes its debut on the dance stage in February 2025 at the Royal Swedish Ballet, with Mats Ek choreographing his Cello Concerto for A Cup of Coffee, Ek’s choreography, which opens on 7 February for a run of thirteen performances, appears in a double-bill with Wayne McGregor’s Infra. The work explores the tensions between couples at different stages of their lives; it is designed by Marie-Louise Ekman and lit by Erik Berglund.

The solo cello part will be performed alternately by Kati Raitinen and Erik Wahlgren with the Royal Swedish Orchestra conducted by Nir Kabaretti. The concerto was written for Nicolas Altstaedt and premiered in October 2020 with the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Fabien Gabel. Like Hillborg’s recent Viola Concerto for Lawrence Power and Piano Concerto No.2 for Emanuel Ax, the 27-minute work is cast in one unbroken movement. It is characterised by the intimacy of its scoring - much of the piece is written for strings alone, with dazzling virtuosity eschewed in favour of long, yearning cantabile lines, giving the work a soulful and reflective quality.

Hillborg’s Cello Concerto was last performed for Swedish audiences by the Göteborgs Symfoniker with Amalie Stalheim and Emilia Hoving on 4 December 2024; Stalheim has previously given the Finnish, Icelandic, and Norwegian premieres of the piece. The concert followed the orchestra’s Hillborg tribute on 28 November conducted by Pekka Kuusisto, celebrating the composer’s 70th birthday in 2024, when they performed King Tide, Through Lost Landscapes, Eleven GatesBach MateriaKväll and The Strand Settings, with Ida Falk Winland as soprano soloist.