about
Jonatan Sersam studied composition at the Malmö Academy of Music (Luca Francesconi), the Conservatory of Bologna and the Künstuniversität in Graz (Beat Furrer). Sersam's musical voyage starts in the encounter between rapid, ruthless transformation and acoustic situations that in various ways questions the idea of progression or process. He's concerned with narration, but not in a programmatic or dramaturgical sense, but the ongoing internal narration within the musical medium. He is experimenting with narrative structures of music, drawing parallels and creating interconnections between contemporary dramatic thinking and the purely abstract flow and musical transformation of sound.
Lately he’s been focusing on music theatre and musi with words in different forms, chamber operas (Tinget, Min Egen Lilla Liten, Konstruktionen), a works for narrator, video and strings (Beyond Lust, commissioned by NOW! Oper de Gegenwart, Graz in collaboration with the video artist Anna-Karin Rasmusson) or setting of the poem by A. Pizarnik Presencia de Sombra (Voix Nouvelles 2022), a piece that was awarded with Saltöstifelsten’s Järnåker Award in 2023. Sersam has worked with several symphony orchestras, chamber groups and soloists, and received several grants and scholarships (STIM, Annik & Lars Leander, Swedish Arts Grants Commitee, Swedish Society of Composers, Swedish Arts Council, Järnåkerstipendiet etc) and his music is reaching a continuously growing audience around the world.
Sersam is one of the founders of the composer group Hertzbreakerz, after being in the artistic council of Connect Festival for new music, and since 2017 he is one of the artistic directors of the Sound Spaces Festival held annually in Malmö.
His past and present collaborators include Schallfeld Ensemble, ICTUS, The Kreutzer Quartet, Ensemble FontanaMix, Ensemble Zeitfluss, Marco Fusi, Malmö Symphony Orchestra, Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra, Norrköping Symphony Orchestra, Ars Nova ensemble, Elektra Ensemble, Musica Vitae, Ruidho Vermelho, Duo Dillon/Torquati, Duo Roche/Zöllner, Västerås Sinfonietta, Norrbotten Neo, and Istantanea among others.
