February 26 we premièred Victoria Counting II together with pieces by Frounberg and Kruglevicius. The whole performance called counting, memory and interrogation was full in the first performance. I think it worked well with the performance as a whole and that the diversity of the pieces gave variation for the audience. I have got lots of positive feedback, but also new thoughts about future work for the piece. I really like to be in a “closed” room surrounded by audience, 8 speakers and the videoscreens. We separated my sound so the 4 genelec,s in the inner circle had the non processed violin sound, and the four big speakers in the corners of the room had the processed sound. A good idea from Ivar Frounberg.

On photo: Mattias Arvastsson and Victoria Johnson playing at Vinterlyd

The fact that Henrik Hellstenius and I have worked with the human, musical, staging and visual questions for many years, has changed my way of looking at musical pieces. I see them as a long lasting projects with potential of great development rather than a piece. I used a whole day reading texts by Gurdjieff trying to understand the end of the piece. What does happen after you have been counting from 1-50 and back 7 times observing yourself and your thoughts? Is it possible to be more present in the daily life with all your roles and doings? How do you cope as an artist with all your stress and obligations? The piece creates an arena for me to invstigate this issues in an artistic way and hopefully will tha audience also feel some familiarity in these issues.