Swedish composer Malin Bång kicks off spring with a wealth of news: on the one hand, her piece for instruments and objects Inuti, premiered on March 24 in Strasbourg by the lovemusic ensemble as part of Botanica, and broadcast the same week on France Musique; on the other, her stage music Judith's Gaze - I, volcanic to a libretto by Mara Lee Gerden - the contemporary counterpart to Béla Bartok's Bluebeard's Castle - which she will present on April 19 at Stockholm's Folkoperan.
A perfect opportunity to meet this solar composer, with her contagious serenity.

Malin you came to France to participate in the creation of your piece Inuti by the collective lovemusicWhat is your relationship with France and the French contemporary music scene?
I lived in Paris for a year a long time ago, in 1996. It was a parenthesis in my music studies. I wanted to experience something else. It's a very nice memory: I took a few French classes, I went to concerts, I attended seminars on composition at the CNSMdP... At that time, I took a class with Gérard Grisey, even though I personally have no affinity with spectral music.
I also participated in the Académie Voix Nouvelles de Royaumont. It was a valuable experience because I was able to meet many French composers. Then I came back to France for a composition residency at the Cité des Arts in 2010. I am always happy to come to Paris for a while!

Apart from lovemusic have you had other collaborations with French ensembles in the past?
A few years ago, I had the chance to work with the Ensemble 2e2m. At Royaumont, during the academy, my music was played by the ensemble Cairn.
Moreover, during my composition studies, I also took part in the summer academy of the Ensemble Aleph: it was a very inspiring experience. I met many young composers from all over the world.

Before creating Inuti for France musique  lovemusic had played two of your pieces, I believe?
Yes, but I had not been able to attend the concerts. This time, we got to know each other. I really like the spirit of this collective, because it is very close to the one of the group I created in Stockholm, Sweden: theCurious Chamber Players. Both groups have the same way of choosing music, the same curiosity, the same will to experiment, to embrace the most diverse musical styles. Another common point is the fact that they are a group of friends, brought together by the pleasure of creating together, with also this joy, this happiness of sharing simple things of the everyday life: a meal for example!
The only difference is that Curious Chamber Playersis a directed ensemble. It is my husband Rei Munakata who conducts the ensemble. He is also a composer and plays objects, depending on the configuration. 

How long has the ensemble been in existence?
The ensemble was born in 2003. We had all just graduated from the conservatory. We already had projects underway, and we wanted to have a structure to bring them to life. The idea came up to invite all our musician friends to join us in the ensemble. That's how the group was born. Of course, the group has undergone a few changes in its composition due to certain life changes - we were young - but today we're a close-knit group, driven by the same passion for creation. We bring a lot to each other.

Are there several composers in the ensemble?
There's Rei and me, but we collaborate with many other composers.

Do you play any instruments in this band?
Sometimes I play acoustic objects. I started playing music as a child with the piano and violin, then the viola, but very soon, when I started composing, I was looking for sounds not found on traditional musical instruments; I wanted to enrich my sound palette. So I started introducing objects, and the most convenient thing was to play them myself! That's how I started manipulating objects on stage.

When did the desire to compose your own music become a reality?
The desire to write my own music came quite early, and gradually. I remember feeling the desire to play the piano when I was six. I said to my parents: "We need a piano". So they found a piano...
Then came music lessons at school. I soon realized that music was what I wanted to do in life, even if I didn't yet know what form it would take.
I loved playing the piano. I was attracted by timbral music, Debussy's piano music for example. A little later, I spontaneously moved towards more contemporary music. At school, my friends and I liked to organize performances that combined music and theater. I think the joy of creating was born from these performances. Later, when I was a teenager, I opened up to different styles of stage music: jams, opera, musical comedy... I was very impressed by all these approaches to music, and I really wanted to go in that direction, but to do so, I first had to learn composition! I started composing more consciously in high school. In fact, from the age of sixteen, I never stopped writing music.

You said you manipulate objects on stage. In fact, you often introduce objects into the instrumental and stage line-up. You like noisy, blown and rubbed sounds. Friction seems to me to be a characteristic of your music...
The way I organize my sound materials is often linked to the presence or absence of friction, and the spectrum is wide: it can range from air coming out of our lips (no friction in such sounds), to sounds that contain a lot of friction and require a lot of physical force. These are very different energies.
I have the same kind of relationship to pitches. When you have to sing a high note, for example, it requires a lot of energy and friction, as opposed to playing on the breath, pianissimo. 

Does this mean that you think of music primarily in terms of friction and movement? What role does the tension-relaxation binomial play in the music you imagine?
One doesn't preclude the other. I also like the classical relationship of tension and relaxation within a work, but I displace it, because it's not the pitches that interest me. During my studies, I tried to imagine harmonic progressions that would bring about this kind of tension, but in reality I realized that I don't listen to music in this way at all. I've found it liberating to use sounds for themselves, and for their physical movement: I'm interested in how sound evolves, and how I can suggest this movement in my music.
Often, I'm looking for sounds that have "elastic" qualities, that can appear pianissimo and in the background at first, only to develop and contain a lot of energy at the right moment.

In many of your works, you use the voice, the breath of the instrumentalists.
The use of the musician's voice has developed over the years, because of the physicality of the instrumental sounds and objects I add, and also to obtain a relationship between the musician's body and his instrument. As a result, breath has been a natural part of the playing, as well as the voice, as if to support the instrumental sound.

Inuti is a work that calls on the musicians' voices and breath, as well as the manipulation of objects. It's a tactile, sensory piece that seems to correspond to the need to return to some fundamentals?
Indeed! The central idea of this piece is to connect our bodies with the outside world through contact and the senses. It's a path between the inside of our bodies and the outside world. It's a form of manifesto, a way of expressing my frustration with the importance of digital technology, with these increasingly commercial platforms that intrude into our lives and divert our attention as soon as we open a page on the web. Even if we're all aware of the danger, we still get caught up in it!
With this composition, I tried to focus on our sensory experiences: what happens when we touch the surface of a wooden box, of a musical instrument... Or what happens in our mouths when we play a wind instrument, when we try to say something with our mouths closed... How we feel the contact of a twig on our skin, our hand, our cheek...
I think I also needed this in my personal evolution. I wanted to open up a different, more interior space, away from the hustle and bustle of the canvas. 

Nature and plants often feature in your music in one way or another. In Inuti , for example, the musicians have to handle twigs of willow, eucalyptus, reed...
My interest in nature has grown a lot in recent years. I've read a lot of books about plant life and how plants communicate. There are a lot of books on the subject, and it's fascinating. In 2015-16, I wrote Kutzu, a piece named after an Asian climbing plant. In this composition, I wanted to explore the existing relationships between plants and humans in the context of climate change. The fact is, plants are highly adaptable. They communicate so well too! They even have a form of solidarity: some plants are said to come to the aid of others. In the end, the plant world is much more resilient than humans... As I've read more and more, I've learned to respect plants more and more! And since we're talking so much about climate change today, we could learn a few lessons from the resilience of the plant world: about how it functions, adapts, communicates and endures. These questions have become increasingly important to me.

In Inuti, you denounce the weight of digital technology and the importance that platforms have taken on in our daily lives. In your 2015 orchestral page, splinters of ebullient rebellion, you were interested in the fact that an isolated individual could contribute to changes in society, thanks to social networks. These questions seem to occupy you a lot?
Composing can be like a diary in which you write down what's going on in your everyday life, what's on your mind. When I composed this orchestral page, the context was very different from today. I didn't yet have this negative vision of the digital world.
At that time, digital platforms really enabled people to express their disagreement, to mobilize for a cause. It was a tool for political discussion. Certain changes in society could be brought about through the voice of citizens. All it took was for someone to speak out, and it was like a spark that ignited chain reactions around the world. These courageous initiatives in favor of greater freedom are fundamental!
The central theme of this orchestral piece is precisely the relationship between the individual and the collective. The collective is symbolized here by the orchestra. Seen from the outside, the orchestra is a highly hierarchical structure, but seen from the inside, it's made up of individuals with their own convictions. The combination of these two situations interests me a great deal!
So, in this splinters of ebullient rebellion page, certain musicians sometimes express themselves in a personal way. At other times, they are the voice of authority. I wanted to play on this ambivalence of roles.

The relationship between the individual and the collective is something you experience through your dual activity: on the one hand, composing - a rather solitary practice - and on the other, collective life as artistic co-director of an ensemble.. How do you find the balance between these two poles?
It's very important to find the balance between the two! The balance can vary from one period of life to the next. For a few years, when I was devoting myself to composing and performing with the Curious Chamber Players, I was able to find that balance, but once I started composing long orchestral pieces, things got out of balance, because it's a long-term job. I had to spend a lot of hours at the table, which I also enjoy enormously, but after a while, in spite of yourself, you're cut off from the world! That's why, at such times, contact with my students has been salutary: my work as a teacher has enabled me to rediscover the balance between the inner and outer worlds.

Interview by Anne Montaron

To be seen on April 19 at Stockholm's Folkoperan, Judith's Gaze - I, volcanic
Listen to : Inuti on France Musique 

Photos © lovemusic