Folke Rabe
"A fundamental goal in my composing activities has been to promote deep listening. Most of my compositions of the 1990's have related to other music that meant a lot to me, and it was a way for me to pay my respect to that music. On the other hand, it was also a way to indicate my relation to the musical environment and to music history."
Folke Rabe is an educator, ethnologist, and composer of instrumental and electronic music. His work draws from the music of many cultures and uses extended techniques for voice and acoustic instruments.
Rabe started out in the 1950s as a jazz trombonist and he has been a member of New Culture Quartet, an intermedia group. Several of Rabe's works, among them 'Rondes' for chorus (1964) and 'Basta' for trombone solo (1982), have been performed often throughout the world. The 'Fools Trilogy', composed collectively by the New Culture Quartet, has received more than 60 performances in Sweden, Europe, USA, and Canada. Rabe was awarded the Swedish Kurt Atterberg Prize in 1996.
Folke Rabe is a freelance composer, recently retired from 20 years of work as an editor and administrator at the Swedish Broadcasting Corporation.
Available CDs
Photo by Joel Chadabe
