Solna Brass

Swedish brass band that was formed in 1970 as an ensemble school within Solna Music and Ballet School and quickly established itself as one of the leading brass bands in Sweden. The band's first LP "Swedish Brass" (1972) attracted a great deal of international attention. Since then, the band has made a number of high-profile recordings and appeared on radio and television programs. Per Ohlsson was the band's first conductor. In 1975 he was succeeded by Lars-Gunnar Björklund, who was the band's musical leader for 32 years. In 2009 Torgny Hanson took over until the autumn of 2012 and since then Emil Björklund has been the band's conductor. Early on, Solna Brass collaborated with guest conductors such as Geoffrey Brand, Bram Gay, Harry Mortimer, Kurt Bendix and Elgar Howarth. Solna Brass has also been visited by conductors such as Esa-Pekka Salonen, Leif Segerstam, Kjell Ingebrethsen and James Watson. A number of significant composers have written for Solna Brass, among them Peter Dickinson, Einujuhanni Rautavaara, Magnar Åm, Leif Thybo and Bengt Hallberg. In 1982, Phil Catelinet instrumentalized Don Pasetti's opera Don Pasquale for Solna Brass, and this led to a number of acclaimed performances in collaboration with the Stockholm Opera Academy. As a result of this collaboration, Solna Brass was invited to be an opera orchestra in Södra Teatern's production of Der Vetter aus Dingsda by Eduard Kunnecke, 25 performances and Viva La Mama by Donizetti, 26 performances. These performances were conducted by Lars-Gunnar Björklund and singers were taken from e.g. Stockholm Opera. As guest soloists, Solna Brass has had singers such as Elisabeth Söderström, Loa Falkman, Birgitta Svendèn and Rolf Björling as well as instrumentalists such as Håkan Hardenberger, Bengt Hallberg and Robert Wells. For a number of years, Solna Brass carried out an esteemed subscription series in Solna with prominent cultural personalities, international soloists and conductors as guests. In 1980, Solna Brass received the Solna City Culture Prize for its cultural work. Solna Brass has represented Sweden at the European Championships seven times with a third place as the best result and won the Swedish Championships six times, most recently in November 2016.