An extraordinary ensemble!

Gothenburg Percussion Ensemble and friends

The GPE is an ensemble consisting of renowned Swedish musicians. Roger Carlsson got the idea of forming this group after many years of collaboration among all of them in different constellations. The musicians have in common the love and skills for contemporary music at the highest artistic level. The repertoire spans over the early 20th century up till today, from pieces by Cage, Cowell and Harrison via Xenakis, Takemitsu and Stockhausen to Tan Dun. GPE, together with their talented and famous friends, is an extraordinary ensemble of musical and human values.

Roger Carlsson
Principal percussionist, Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra Conductor/musical adviser
Roger studied percussion and conducting at the Academy of Music in Gothenburg  where he in 1982 got his Master in Music and Soloist Diploma. In 1979 he studied at the Royal Academy of Music, National Centre for Orchestral Studies (NCOS) in London and 1982, at the Juilliard School of Music, New York.

Between 1980-82 he was employed at the Gothenburg Opera Orchestra and between 1986-88 as solo timpanist in the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra. From 1991 he holds the position as Principal Percussionist of the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra.

Roger appears on numerous recordings, as soloist and orchestra musician, and has made several solo performances in Scandinavia, Europe, United States and China.

In recent years he has been appointed coach and tutor for the Swedish National Orchestra Academy, Gothenburg University and is now the Musical Director of the Gothenburg Percussion Ensemble.

Michael Andersson
Latin percussion & drums The Academy of Music and Drama, Gothenburg University
Michael got his education at the Academy of Music in Gothenburg and in Stockholm. He is a well renowned musician in world-music and has studied ethnic percussion in Africa, the Caribbean and Bali. Since the 1970's, he is a freelance percussionist, often appointed by the Gothenburg Symphony and Opera Orchestras. Michael is a highly appreciated musician in various ensembles in Sweden and elsewhere.

Daniel Berg
Marimba soloist percussion & mallets The Academy of Music, Gothenburg University
Daniel is a successful percussion soloist with marimba as main instrument. He appears on several recordings for radio and TV as well as CDs with marimba and chamber music. Daniel teaches percussion at Ljungskile college, the Academy of Music in Örebro and Gothenburg.

Fredrik Duvling
Percussion & mallets freelance Gothenburg Opera Orchestra
Fredrik is a freelance percussionist, works as a chamber and orchestra musician. He works mostly with orchestras as Gothenburg Opera Orchestra and Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra in Sweden, Royal Danish Opera Orchestra in Copenhagen, Trondheim Symphony Orchestra in Norway among others.
For over two decades he has also played in the percussion duo Rhythm Art Duo together with Daniel Berg. They have successful collaborations with many Swedish composers who compose directly for the duo.
Jerker Johansson
Percussion & mallets Gothenburg Wind Orchestra, Composer
Jerker got his education at the Academy of Music in Gothenburg and works as percussionist in one of Sweden's rare professional symphonic wind orchestras. He has got long experience and a good reputation as conductor of wind and symphony orchestras. Jerker is also a highly appreciated composer and arranger.

Jakob Olofsson
Percussion & mallets Freelance
Jakob has studied percussion at the University of Gothenburg. Since 1998 he has worked in different ensembles in Sweden such as Gothenburg Symphonic Orchestra ,the Gothenburg Opera, Jönköpings Sinfonietta, Norrköping Symphonic Orchestra and Gothenburg Wind Orchestra. He has also been involved in many chamber music projects.
In his spare time he devotes himself to the passion of composing christmas music.

Andreas Vettefors
Percussion Freelance
Andreas has studied percussion at the Music Academy of Malmö. In 2011-12 he was a member of SNOA (the Swedish National Orchestra Academy) where he had Roger Carlsson as coach and tutor. Andreas now works as freelance percussionist in the region of Malmö and Copenhagen.

Martin Ödlund
Co principal timpani Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra
Martin studied percussion and timpani at the Royal Academy of Music in Stockholm. In 2011 he was appointed co principal timpanist in the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra.

Vlad Stanculeasa
First Concertmaster, violin Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra
Vlad was born in Craiova, a city in the south of southern Rumania. He got his education at the International Menuhin Music Academy. Ever since, the music has brought him around the world where he has won various competitions. He has participated in master classes together with famous violinists such as the German-Argentinian violin professor Ana Chumachenco and the German violinist, chamber musician and teacher Thomas Brandis. Vlad is the first concert master of the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra and first guest concert master of the Basel Chamber Orchestra, in Switzerland.

Claes Gunnarsson
Principal, solo cellist Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra
Claes studied at the Gothenburg College of Music, where he in 1996 got his Master of Music and Soloist Diploma. 1996-99 he was a student at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, studying with the world renowned cellist Ralph Kirshbaum.

As one of the leading cellists in Scandinavia, Claes has appeared as a soloist and chamber musician all over the world, with orchestras such as the Swedish Radio, Helsingborg, Norrköping, Malmö, Umeå and Gothenburg Symphony Orchestras as well as Musica Vitae, Nordic Chamber Orchestra, Dalasinfoniettan; Värmlands Sinfonietta and S:t Petersburgh Heremitage Orchestra. He has been invited to major festivals such as La Folle Journée in Nantes, Music@Menlo in San Fransisco as well as Yuri Temirkanovs Winter Festival in S:t Petersburg. Lately he has worked with conductors including Neeme Järvi, Christian Zacharias, Nikolaj Znajder and Alexander Lazarev in venues such as Filharmonie in S:t Petersburg, Queen Elisabeth Hall, Wigmore Hall in London, Seoul Arts Center and Neuroscience Institute in La Jolla.

In 2002, he was a founder of the pianotrio Trio Poseidon. Today, they are one of the most sought after chambermusic ensemble in Sweden. As a passionate chambermusician, he regurarly play chambermusic with artists like violinist Nikolaj Znajder, soprano Barbara Hendricks, pianist Christian Zacharias among  others.

Claes is currently represented by Chandos Records. His reordings of the Weinberg Phantasy and Concerto, Brahms Double Concerto and Beethoven Triple Concerto together with the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra and Neeme Järvi has been incredibly well received by the major music magazines around the world. He recently got a ”Les Diapason d´or” among Simon Rattle and Berlin Philharmonic in the French Musicmagazine Diapason for his recording of the Weinberg Concerto.

Since 1999, Claes is combining his solocareer with a position as a Principal Cello of the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra.

Erik Risberg
Piano, Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra
Erik has been pianist in the  Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra since the 1980's. as orchestra pianist he not only plays the parts in Strawinsky Petrushka and Schostakovitch fifth Symphony, but also organ , cembalo and synthesizer (when needed). He is also pianists at the rehearsals with the Gothenburg Symphony Chorus and appears as chamber musician on a regular basis. During several decades, he is performing together with Bengt Forsberg in piano duos. Recently this year they performed Bartok's Sonata for two pianos and percussion together with GSO's percussionists Hans Hernqvist och Martin Ödlund.

Bengt Forsberg
Piano soloist, Board member of The Royal Swedish Academy of Music
Bengt is one of Sweden's leading pianists and is particularly esteemed as a recital accompanist. He pursued courses at the Royal Academy of Music in Gothenburg, training to become a church organist and cantor, but by the time of his graduation in 1978 had shifted to piano, in which he obtained his diploma. He then continued his training with Peter Feuchtwanger in London and Herman D. Koppel in Copenhagen.

He has become known for his wide repertory and his constant interest in finding neglected music. In 1999, he performed Nikolai Medtner's Second Piano Concerto with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, played as part of the multi-piano recitals in performances of Stravinsky's The Wedding and George Antheil's Ballet mécanique in Copenhagen, and the solo part in Bernstein's Age of Anxiety Symphony with the Malmö Symphony Orchestra. His repertory includes piano solo works of Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Charles Alkan, Emmanuel Chabrier, and Kaikhosru Sorabji, and his recordings include compositions by Godard, Boëllmann, Koechlin, Pierné, and Alfvén.

Forsberg may be the most esteemed and in-demand accompanists. Among the artists he regularly accompanies are cellist Mats Lidström and violinist Nils-Erik Sparf. With the well-known mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter he has maintained a long-standing partnership resulting in many recordings on the Deutsche Gramophone label, including a Gramophone "Record of the Year" Award for 1995 for their program of songs of Edvard Grieg. He and von Otter also collaborated in the BIS label's ongoing complete Sibelius project. Forsberg also records for Hyperion when partnering with Lidström, and has several releases on the Caprice Records label.

He has a strong interest in French music of the 1800s, and in 1999 began a Saint-Saëns series for Hyperion. He continues to keep a relationship with church music as the director of the chamber music series of the All Saints Church in Stockholm.