Mats Persson

Swedish Musician and Songwriter

Swedish pianist and composer, born 1943 in Järbo, near Sandviken. He studied piano for Greta Erikson and new ensemble music for Siegfried Naumann at Musikhögskolan in Stockholm. Later he studied piano for Aloys Kontarsky and chamber music for Alfons Kontarsky at the Hochschule für Musik in Cologne. He participated in several of the International Summercourses in Darmstadt. Persson has, since 1972, been very active as a solo pianist, in a duo with Kristine Scholz and as a member of the ensemble for new music, Harpans Kraft. Through his active career he has made more than 200 first performances of works by Swedish composers and around thirty Swedish composers have written directly for him. He's one of few interpreters who has played and understood the importance of the Swedish composer Claude Loyola Allgén. Some of the composers outside Sweden that have written directly for him are Aldo Clementi, Chris Newman, Christian Wolff and Zoltán Jeney. As a composer he has focused on the piano, chamber music and music for children to play.