On 3 September Anders Hillborg’s Saxophone Concerto premieres with his son Theo Hillborg and the Gothenburg Symphony, conducted by Pekka Kuusisto. The 21-minute piece was commissioned by John Kongsgaard and Göteborgs Symfoniker.
The concerto opens with saxophone alone, revelling in its lyrical qualities, with its long lines accompanied by the ringing of crystal glasses and gleaming strings (redolent of the verrophone in Hillborg’s Sound Atlas). The saxophone’s movement becomes more energetic and rhapsodic, with quasi – and sometimes fully – improvisatory lines. The wilder side of the instrument emerges in ‘Mariachi Machine with Birds’, with the orchestra joining in these joyful outbursts and establishing a new groove. A short cadenza for saxophone breaks out into the semiquavers the set off the piece’s wild finale.
In 2025 Theo recorded Hillborg’s The Breathing of the World for saxophone and choir with the Swedish Radio Choir and Kaspars Putniņš for their album …a riveder le stelle; in 2023 he recorded Hillborg’s Shared Solitudes – a 4-minute pair of duets for soprano saxophones with Anders Paulsson. In January 2024 Theo appeared with the Swedish Radio Symphony and Esa-Pekka Salonen to perform the cello-section version of The Breathing of the World as part of their all-Hillborg 70th birthday celebration gala.
Hillborg’s first dedicated concerto for the instrument, it complements his soprano saxophone version of Peacock Tales (originally for clarinet), premiered by the Vienna Philharmonic and Valentine Michaud in Lucerne in 2022; Michaud subsequently recorded the piece with Philzuid and Duncan Ward in 2023.
14 August saw the release of world premiere recordings of Hillborg’s Through Lost Landscapes and Sound Atlas on Alpha, with the Gothenburg Symphony conducted by Kuusisto and Brad Lubman. The album, which includes a new recording of The Strand Settings with soprano Ida Falk Winland, captures their 70th birthday celebration concert from 2024. Listen here.