Ulf Grahn

Ulf Grahn (January 17, 1942 – January 25, 2023) was a Swedish composer born in Solna. He lived the majority of his life in the United States specifically in the Washington, D.C. area.

Life and education Between 1962 and 1970, Grahn studied music primarily with Hans Eklund at the and subsequently at the Royal College of Music, Stockholm.He earned degrees at the Stockholm Institute of Music Pedagogy

Ulf Åke Wilhelm Grahn died January 25, 2023 after a battle with large B cell CNS lymphoma.

Career In 1974 Grahn and his wife, the pianist Barbro Dahlman, founded the Contemporary Music Forum, which presents performances of works by living European and American composers, and he was its program director until 1984. Since 1985, he has operated the music publisher Edition NGLANI. In 1988–89, he was artistic and managing director of the Lake Siljan Music Festival in Sweden. and the 1983 Sonata for Violin and Piano commissioned by the Library of Congress. His music is modern but accessible to a general audience. and reviews in the Washington Post have described his Through the Passage of Time for recorder (also 1982) as "clever and acrobatic", his 1988 Celebration for solo marimba as "intricate and buoyant", and his 1991 Three Short Pieces for String Quartet, originally composed for piano, as "seem[ingly] so idiomatic for strings, with their shimmering, overlapping lines and delicate interplay, that it is hard to imagine a piano being able to make much sense of them", although his song cycle From Dusk to Dawn was described as "[having] some interesting things to say but did not stop when it had said them."

He has also received commissions from Contemporary Music Forum, Levin School of Music, Musik i Södermanland and numerous individuals.

Discography Quadrants Release Date: September 25, 2012 Catalog Number: NV5883 Navona Records

Personal Grahn was hospitalized for cancer treatment in 1986 and worked on a commissioned work there; he recovered the following year. Articles Scandinavian Music, By Lon Tuck - The Washington Post, published May 21, 1983