Martin Fröst
Martin Fröst is a Swedish clarinetist, born in Sundsvall in the north of Sweden in 1970. He first started playing the violin at the age of six, but he found playing soccer and basketball were more interesting. When he was nine, he started playing the clarinet, and when he was 15, he moved to Stockholm to study music and clarinet playing. Later, he also studied in Hannover.
Today, he is one of the leading clarinet soloists, playing mostly classical music, but also contemporary music and so-called crossovers. Each year, Fröst performs a new-written work. One of his best known projects in Sweden is "No Strings Attached", which was performed by him together with among others the mezzo soprano Malena Ernman. He has put together the musical drama "B A C H" - Beyond All Clarinet History - together with cellist Svante Henryson and pianist Roland Pöntinen, which will be performed during 2008 and 2009, and is a fusion between Bach and contemporary music.
Martin Fröst has recorded several CDs, containing Mozart's, Nielsen's, Aho's and Weber's clarinet concertos, as well as a number of works for clarinet and piano together with the pianist Roland Pöntinen. He is known as the song bird of clarinet world.
Awards
The Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter's Culture Award (Swedish)