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The Chamber Choir Octava

With a passion for music and a desire to truly move their audience, the ambitious Chamber Choir Octava from Östersund embraces both contemporary and traditional choral works. They offer a wide range of composers, and after nearly 40 years, they have built up a large and loyal audience.

For information about our events, please refer to our Swedish website.

About the Choir

Octava is an ambitious chamber choir with a real appetite for all kinds of music, always striving to grow and refine its musical expression. Every member brings extensive choral experience, along with a shared ambition to let the music take centre stage. The repertoire is fairly varied, though mainly focused on traditional choral works, contemporary choral lyricism, and sacred music. In recent years, newly composed pieces have become an increasingly prominent part of Octava’s programmes, and the choir aims to perform works that have not previously been heard in their home city of Östersund – contemporary music by both female and male composers – resulting in several first performances.

In all their concerts, Octava seeks to create performances that both move and inspire. Among the composers they frequently return to are Arvo Pärt (Estonia), Ola Gjeilo (Norway), Stephanie Martin (Canada), Morten Lauridsen (USA), Cecilia McDowall (England), and Jämtland’s own composer Wilhelm Peterson-Berger.

In addition to countless performances across Jämtland and Härjedalen, the choir has given several concerts elsewhere in Sweden, as well as toured in Norway, Germany, Lithuania, and Iceland.

More about the history of the Choir

Chorists

The chamber choir Octava in Östersund currently consists of just over 30 singers. All members bring extensive choral experience and share a common ambition to grow both as an ensemble and as individual vocalists, seeing Octava as a place where they can take on greater musical challenges.

The choir’s current permanent members are:

Soprano

Helen Asklund, Britt-Marie Öhrman-Bergqvist, Maria Blomberg, Astrid Domino, Nathalie Engman, Kicki Gustafsson, Gölin Hällberg, Kiki Korths-Aspegren, Isabelle Kron, Sigrid Lindqvist och Scilla Von Boisman

Alto

Lisbet Gibson, Elin Granbom, Lina Lannemyr Lindahl, Klara Lundström, Sofia Långström, Kristina Nordqvist, Elisabeth Ståhl, Marie Söderström och Ylva Åström

Tenor

Magnus Gibson, Max Lindqvist, Rasmus Lövgren, Per-Olov Olsson, Lars-Åke Wikström och Christian Öhrman

Bass

Olov Amelin, Gustaf Biasoletto, Johan Iwald, Johan Johansson, Mattias Refsnes, Magnus Skårstedt och Erik Wetterbrandt

Conductor

Maria Sjöstedt has been the choir’s conductor since 2016.

She was born in Umeå but grew up in Brunflo, where her family roots lie – in the village of Bodal.

She completed her musical studies at the music academies in Gothenburg, Stockholm and Vercelli (Italy), studying piano with, among others, Ingemar Bergefeldt, Vittorio Rosetta and Tamara Jeltowa – as well as conducting with Gösta Ohlin, Jan Yngve and Per Borin. After her studies, Maria returned to Jämtland to work as a piano teacher in the arts programme at Jämtlands Gymnasium.

Maria is active as a teacher, pianist, chamber musician and choral conductor in a wide range of musical settings across the region, including projects such as Trio Quinta and Sounds of Women. For her work in highlighting music by female composers, she was awarded Östersund Municipality’s Cultural Scholarship in 2017, together with Trio Quinta and Lena Moén.

I’m fascinated by what music can mean to people today, and by what happens in the meeting between choir, composer, conductor and – perhaps most importantly – the audience. Working with music together with others always brings me joy...