Peter Nygren

Meet the Musicians

I’m originally from Skellefteå, and like so many others, I started playing at the municipal music school. Since so many of my friends were already playing there, it felt natural to join them. Plus, my older brother was already playing the trombone, so I wanted to play it too.

In high school, I attended a four-year technical program, but after my third year, I applied to the Royal College of Music and was accepted. I completed the musician training program and earned a chamber music diploma, and then worked as a freelancer in Stockholm for a few years. Mostly in the classical genre, but also quite a bit of jazz and pop.

In 1991, a position opened up in the orchestra, and I had the opportunity to take it. It also worked out well for my family to move here to Umeå.

I think the orchestra here at the Norrlands Opera sounds so good that it’s hard to single out any one concert that I remember in particular, but I have a soft spot for new music, and it was especially memorable when we played Georg Friedrich Haas’s *In Vain* in pitch darkness.

Being right in the middle of the music and being a part of it is an amazing feeling. I can get “caught up” in the music in any setting—as long as it rings out, has a groove, or has a drive to it. What’s also fun is getting to meet and play with all these amazing musicians, but the best part is performing concerts together with an audience—because that’s when, and only then, can magic happen.

Then again, things haven’t always gone perfectly for everyone either… I remember, for one thing, an opera performance in Wiesbaden—during Wagner’s *Lohengrin*—where the conductor fell off the podium and landed right in the first violins! I’ve also been there when the conductor lost his place at the end of Stravinsky’s *The Rite of Spring* and the ballet dancers on stage didn’t know where the beat had gone. It wasn’t so funny at the time, but it turned into a good laugh afterward. Over the years, I’ve also had a few strange experiences of my own. When I was visiting Västernorrland, for example, I opened the daily newspaper ÖA and saw myself in a photo in a crossword puzzle! The word they were looking for was “trombonist.” Another time, I was in New York visiting the gift shop at the Metropolitan Opera; I went to pay, and the clerk looked up at me and said, “You’re a principal.” Perhaps one of the strangest things is that I, my trombone, and Princess Lilian are all pictured together on a postcard.