Gaal, Zoltan

Zoltan Gaal

Biography

Born: February 21, 1934

Country: Roumania

Studies: Budapest, State Academy of Music, Stockholm

Teachers: Ferenc Szabo, Endre Szervansky, Lars-Erik Larsson

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Zoltán Gaál was born in Romania in 1934. He moved with his family to Hungary in 1940.

Zoltán Gaál went through music studies in Budapest, including compositional studies with Ferenz Szabo and Endre Szervánszky. After the uprisings in Hungary in 1956 he came to Sweden, where he studied composition with Lars-Erik Larsson, Karl-Birger Blomdahl and Ingvar Lidholm. He has also studied at the Institutions for Musical Sciences at the Stockholm and Gothenburg Universities.

As a composer, Gaál has collaborated with a row of ensembles in Sweden as well as in other countries, and with, amongst others, Opera Studio 67 in Stockholm and the Music Theater of the District of Värmland. In addition, he has been active as a music pedagogue. During an extended period her was employed as a producer of school music and contemporary music at Concerts Sweden’s [Svenska Rikskonserter] Gothenburg regional office, and thereafter as an animator and composer at Music West [Musik i Väst].

Zoltán Gaál’s production embraces several choral works, in traditional (for instance Missa Brevis) as well as graphic (Pelagon) notation. Chamber music occupies a great space in his oeuvre, like for example Stones Are Carried Along By The Current for three clarinets and tape – a commission from the Sound & Vision Festival of Skövde - plus ingenious and inventive works for percussion (Run and others). Gaál also shows a special affinity for sound art in its wider sense, also comprising working with electronically achieved and/or treated sounds. Collaborations with theaters like the Music Theater of the District of Värmland have resulted in the music for Don Quixote In Our Midst [Don Quijote mitt ibland oss] and It’s Windy On The Moon [Det blåser på månen]. In addition to his role as a composer, Zoltán Gaál has appeared as a poet with his own writing in Hungarian as well as Swedish, attended to musical theater and arranged art installations.

Works for Percussion

Run - Percussion Trio