Swedish improviser and percussionist Matilda Rolfsson (1987. Based in Trondheim Norway) is a strong voice of the young “garde” of free-improvising musicians in Scandinavia. She is somehow freely schooled from her jazz studies at the Music Conservatoire in Trondheim Jazzlinja where she developed her distinguee and textural style of improvising freely on her bass drum and other percussion. Solo, together with musicians or with dancers she is frequently exploring the instant-compositions in the moment, dynamics, orchestrations, materials, structure and chaos, to make rules and break rules, always with the question: where is the music going, and wheres the freedom?

Matilda can be seen and heard together with improvisers around the world; Maggie Nicols & Lisa Ullén (Trio Generations), Mats Gustafsson, Joëlle Léandre, Elisabeth Harnik, Sten Sandell, Joel Grip, Heida Johannesdottir and Guro Moe etc. This autumn of 2020 she will start as artistic researcher ( PhD) at the music conservatoire in Trondheim, NTNU, with focus on free improvisation and the inter-discipline interplay between music and dance.

‘‘I was very happy to be invited to do a recording session with music and film for this year’s YARMONICS Festival. Me and my very good friend Juliane Schütz were spending an afternoon in my practice-room at Stillverk1.in Trondheim. Shooting the films and different solos in whole takes were fun but also demanding.

I wanted the cooperation between us to be as alive as possible, so Juliane had totally freedom when filming. The YARMONICS team invited us to incorporate pictures of the sea, instead Juliane used my physical movements together with the visual surroundings that is to be found around Stillverk1. Which also includes water, birds, grass etc.

The three solo- pieces, that are freely improvised, shows where I am now, artistically. One solo is with snare-drum/brushes, one is with bass drum, and one shows my attempt to transform motions as sound-materials on the drumkit. I haven’t used the drumkit since I was a jazz-student. It’s joyful to have found a way back to the kit, with new perspectives. Just before the pandemic situation escalated here in Norway I bought myself a Slingerland- kit from 1955, which has made great impact on my playing. I love the world of sounds that the drumkit carries, just the resonance of it reveals outstanding potentials to my ears.’’

soundcloud.com/matilda-rolfsson

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Photograph: Juliane Schütz