Erik Valdemar Sköld
(born in 1991) is a composer of contemporary classical music based in Malmö, Sweden.
He has been a student at the academy of music in Malmö since 2015 and some of his teachers include names like Rolf Martinsson, Luca Francesconi and Bent Sorensen.
Skölds musical language has gone through several stages. In the beginning he composed in a more neoclassical idiom but later experimented with serialism and aleatoric techniques. His current style is a synthesis of both impressionism and spectral music, and he focuses a lot on themes from nature and mythology in his pieces.
Contemplations of Summer
The piece is describing the atmosphere of a season in which the devastation of climate change becomes even more noticable. Droughts, heatwaves and storms have now become the norm and pose an even bigger threat to not just our civilization but to all life on earth. This sad reality is something which has influenced Sköld in many of his recent works and the dissonant world of sound in "Contemplations of Summer" reflects this reality.