A Thousand Years of Missing - Music and Poetry in Two Acts

A new literary and musical work of art is born when cellist and lyricist Per Nyström, actress Marika Lagercrantz and composer Simon Bång meet. A Thousand Years of Missing, Per's fourth collection of poems, is now presented in a scenic whole for spoken voice and solo cello. Simon Bång has just returned from the Opéra national de Paris after his monumental success with the ballet music for The Little Prince. Simon Bång's 20-minute composition for solo cello will be integrated with the lyrics. The cello becomes what is not said and the words what is not played. A Thousand Years of Missing is a performance about a place where time slows down while the world moves on. A story about love and delight, about longing and missing a flame that must never be extinguished. "I want to let the human voice and music carry forward the vulnerable and deeply human. The cello becomes a living movement through time -- a bodily resonance and an expression of what cannot be fully said in words. In the meeting between voice, cello and poem I want to open a space where the listener himself has a place -- where the living and present can take center stage, beyond the filtered and fast." Simon Bång The work will have its premiere during the tour 9 -- 11 October in Umeå, Skellefteå and Luleå. Marika Lagercrantz will also present her own reflections on our contemporary times. As a special point in the program, a new Swedish translation of Leonard Cohen's A Thousand Kisses Deep will also be performed. The work is made possible by a donation from Karl-Otto Bonnier.