S.J. Pettersson

Composer S.J. Pettersson, originally from Sweden, resides in Los Angeles where he teaches and composes music.  An autodidact of sorts, he privately studied counterpoint, orchestration and orchestral scores by composers as diverse as Bach, Prokofiev, Weil  and Michael Nyman eventually forging his own unique style – an anachronistic blend of 20th century minimalism with romanticism, classicism and  jazz. In 2007 he completed a full orchestral ballet based on the architecture of Antonio Gaudi  entitled: Gaudi - Dancing About Architecture.  2009 marked the release of A Dream Play, A Chamber Opera for Soloists and Small Orchestra based on the 1901 play by the Swedish playwright August Strindberg. A recording of the opera was released late the same year to both national and international notices.
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In 2011 S.J. Pettersson completed a chamber ballet, Romeo & Juliet, based on a unique interpretation of Shakespeare's play. The ballet was recorded by some of the finest new classical musicians of today and released to rave reviews  A collaboration with the Los Angeles dance/theater company MiMoDa led to many dance performances to music from all three previous projects.

A song cycle / chamber ballet titled The Dracula Letters  based on letters and diary entries from Bram Stoker's novel Dracula is in the process of being recorded and his latest composition. A six part piano/cello/flute & clarinet quartet called Suite from Diary of a Seducer inspired by the 1843 Søren Kierkegaard novel had its world premiere Nov 7th 2012 in Los Angeles at Maksim Velichkin’s ground breaking concert series Music@MiMoDa.
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Spring of 2013 marked the creation of a The Krysalis Ensemble, a chamber group of renowned classical soloists dedicated to performing the music of S.J. Pettersson. In the summer of 2013 marked the premiere performance of a newly written suite entitled Les Saisons Mélancoliques consisting of four movements based on nostalgic childhood memories of the composer from each of the four seasons.