For some, music is just tones and words that pass by when they drive to work in the morning — a brief distraction coming from the car radio. For me, it has been a refuge in times of sorrow.
I grew up in a small village just outside of Gothenburg on the west coast of Sweden. Unlike most of my friends, I traveled frequently during my childhood. My father was an archeologist who conducted excavations in extraordinary places in the world, and my mother and I traveled with him on many of his journeys.
From the age of one I spent every Easter in Cyprus and every summer in Greece. When I was eight years old I discovered the piano. Like an excavation I wanted to dive into its depth and look for tones that could explain my life and everything around it.
Twenty years later, after my father had passed away in cancer, I found my musical language. My compositions would be places of shelter - places were the cruelty of the world could be forgotten.
— Henrik Åström, October 2010
Henrik Åström was born in Gothenburg, Sweden, in 1980. He has studied at the Stockholm Music Conservatory and Berklee College of Music in Boston. He has released two CD albums as a solo artist and has worked with artists such as Glen Matlock (Sex Pistols), Miss Li, Titiyo and Oh Laura in his studio in Stockholm. He has composed music for the dance works Void, Ama-No-Gawa, Corona and Endagered for dancer Frauke. He recently wrote the music score for the family drama “Jake and Jasper” (starring Connor Stanhope and Blu Mankuma) and is now concentrating on composing music for film, television and dance.
