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The guitarist Andreas Almqvist was born in the north of Sweden in 1948. His father was a merchant and his mother a Jewess, an emigre as a result of World War II. Andreas started playing popular music in local bands as a teenager but soon he changed to classical music. His studies of classical music have been carried out in various music schools and music high schools in Sweden. He also spent 3 years in Madrid (Spain) studying music and also studied in Barcelona.
Andreas Almqvist's music activities include teaching, concerts and he has also made a CD recording of modern "free form Avant Garde" music.
Göran Sörbom, professor emeritus in Aesthetics at Uppsala University, wrote in the liner notes to Andreas Almqvist's recordings of J.S. Bach's Goldberg Variations (BWV 988): "We can join this group of admirers [of the GV] by playing his music and learn about Bach’s musical cosmos, its structure and content. The knowledge, interests, and ability of the performer also form this process. On this record Andreas Almqvist has chosen to study the Goldberg Variations from the horizon of a guitarist. A guitar is different from a harpsichord or any other instrument. The guitar has its own demands. This means that the performer necessarily must try to bring the several preconditions into the personal unit his musical taste demands. With sensibility and great knowledge he gives us his version of the Aria with variations." |
