Double Concerto for Violin, Cello and Orchestra was commissioned and premiered by Västerås Sinfonietta with the orchestras concert master Daniel Frankel and solo cellist Åsa Åkerberg as soloists, conducted by Eivind Aadland 10/4 2003. The Double Concerto was chosen as a ”Recommended work” at UNESCOs Rostrum for composers 2005. The Double Concerto was released on the portrait-cd ”Residues” by SR Records in 2006. The material in this concerto is based on a Swedish folk tune that I've used in several of my pieces before, a wedding march from the north of Sweden called "Jämtländsk brudmarsch". The material from this tune has then been treated in different ways through a computer to break it into something that could be re-shaped but still keep some of it's original qualities. Some of the most present traces from folkmusic in this piece are the drones and the use of quarter tones. Non tempered tuning systems are very common in folk music from around the world and it is sometimes strange how different kinds of music can share the same view of the quality of these pitches. One of the most striking examples of that is that the quarter tones in Swedish folk music have been referred to as "blue notes" for hundreds of years - long before there was a music style called Blues. There were even more specific names for smaller intervals that were called "lightblue" and "darkblue".
Jesper Nordin.