Research Catalogue

Kent Olofsson is a composer with an extensive artistic output of nearly 200 works that span a broad field of genres, ensemble types and contexts including music for orchestra, chamber music, electroacoustic music, intermedial theatre, alternative rock music, opera, radiophonic works, music for baroque instruments and works for dance performances and art installations. His music has been performed by ensembles and orchestras like Ensemble Recherche, Symphonieorchesters des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Swedish Radio Choir, KammarensembleN, Klangforum Wien, Oslo Sinfonietta and Avantii! and by conductors as Lothar Zagrosek, Gustavo Dudamel, Mario Venzago and Franck Ollu. Since 2009 he is collaborating with Swedish theatre group Teatr Weimar and its artistic leader, playwright, director and video artist Jörgen Dahlqvist. Their productions have been widely recognized also internationally with performances like Hamlet II: Exit Ghost, A Language at War and Arrival Cities: Hanoi, the latter composed for Vietnamese instruments, chamber ensemble and electronics.

Olofsson holds a PhD in artistic research with the thesis Composing the Performance: An exploration of musical composition as a dramaturgical strategy in contemporary intermedial theatre from 2018. In the thesis he discusses the artistic and collaborative processes in five performances that he created together with Teatr Weimar and that are situated in the intersection between contemporary theatre, new music, radio plays and performance art.

Recent works and productions include the highly acclaimed Independence Day and In Search of Lost Time (a staging of Proust’s monumental novel), two intermedial stage works created in collaboration with actor, writer and performance artist Nina Jeppsson, the latter work also with director Maja Salomonsson.

Since 2021 Olofsson is professor of performing arts for the research area Concept and Composition at the Stockholm University of the Arts.