Swedish Composter Named DSO Award Winner

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Swedish composer Britta Byström has been awarded the eighth annual Elaine Lebenbom Memorial Award for Female Composers by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.

Byström, who was chosen from applicants worldwide, will compose a new work for orchestra that will be given its premiere in the 2016-17 season. In addition to concerts presenting her work, Byström will receive a $10,000 prize.

Byström has composed for most sizes of orchestras and contexts including chamber music, vocal music and opera, but the emphasis has been on orchestral music. Some of those who have performed her music are the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Gürzenich Orchestra, the Norwegian Radio Orchestra and the International Youth Wind Orchestra. In 2010, she was the subject of a ”weekend composer portrait” at the Stockholm Concert Hall, and in 2014 she was the Swedish Radio Orchestra’s “spring composer,” with several orchestral performances. 

Byström was born in Sundsvall, Sweden and began her musical career as a trumpet player. In her teens, she began to compose music and studied composition at the Royal University of Music in Stockholm 1995-2001, where her main teachers were Pär Lindgren and Bent Sørensen.