Claes Gunnarsson has toured worldwide as a soloist, chamber musician, orchestral musician, and teacher. He had an early breakthrough in his career, debuting as a soloist in Dvořák’s Cello Concerto with the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, after which he was invited to become their principal cellist, a position he has held since 1999.
Claes has given solo concerts in venues such as Wigmore Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, St. Petersburg Philharmonic, Shanghai Symphony Hall, Seoul Arts Center, and Singapore Symphony Hall, and has appeared at leading international festivals such as La Folle Journée in Nantes, Music@Menlo in California, the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festival, and Yuri Temirkanov’s Winter Festival in St. Petersburg, collaborating with conductors like Neeme Järvi, Kent Nagano, Santtu-Matias Rouvali, Alexander Lazarev, Mikhail Jurowski, Christian Zacharias, and Christopher Warren-Green.
As an active chamber musician, Claes has worked with violinists Leonidas Kavakos and Nikolaj Znaider, pianists Christian Zacharias, Roland Pöntinen, and Hélène Grimaud, and has performed for 20 years with his colleagues Sara Trobäck and Per Lundberg in the piano trio Trio Poseidon. During these years, they have toured extensively both nationally and internationally and made a critically acclaimed recording of Beethoven’s Triple Concerto and Brahms’ Double Concerto with the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra and Neeme Järvi on the Chandos Records label. On the same label, he has also made successful recordings of Weinberg’s Cello Fantasy and Cello Concerto with the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra and Thord Svedlund, the latter awarded a Diapason d’Or by the French music magazine Diapason.
Claes is also represented on the BIS label with the premiere recording of Albert Schnelzer’s Cello Concerto. He has been invited as a guest principal cellist with several orchestras, including the Oslo Philharmonic, Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, and London Symphony Orchestra. Claes teaches at the Academy of Music and Drama at the University of Gothenburg. He plays a 1707 David Tecchler cello, generously loaned by the Järnåker Foundation.
Frontside Chamber Music Association has existed since 2019 and is largely driven by volunteer efforts, but we are highly dependent on additional financial sponsors and fundings. All contributions are used to engage fantastic musicians, rents of venues and all other things that make the festival a magical experience.
If you are interested in chamber music that goes beyond the ordinary, you should become a member! As a member, you are invited to the association’s annual meeting and participate in electing the board. You can also suggest activities for the association, thereby influencing future festivals and other events we organize. You also have the opportunity to volunteer during the festival, allowing you to enjoy wonderful chamber music without paying an entrance fee.
How do I become a member and support Frontside? Submit your information in the form below and pay the membership fee, and we will register you as a member immediately. Please also indicate which chamber music you love the most. Together with your personal information, this helps us better understand who our members are. How we handle your information can be read under the GDPR section.
You renew your membership every fall term – we’ll remind you! Alternatively, you can purchase a lifetime membership and thus become a permanent member with a one-time fee.
If you join as a new member in the spring, your payment also covers the following year’s membership.
How do I do it and what does it cost? You can pay the membership fee to Bankgiro 5318-7969 or via Swish 123 356 63 95. Always include your name and, if paying via bankgiro, your mobile number.
Welcome as a member!
For requests, feedback, and additional information, fill in your message in the form at the bottom or send an email to info@frontside-festival.se
The General Data Protection Regulation, GDPR, came into force within the EU on May 25, 2018.
How does Frontside handle its membership register? In our membership register, we store your name, address details, email address, phone number, and birth year. If you leave the association, we will retain your information for a maximum of seven (7) years before deleting it.
Who has access to my information? We register your details digitally in our membership register. Only you (first party) and individuals with trusted roles in the association (second party) have access to your information. No information is shared with third parties.
You can request to see what information we have collected about you at any time.
Validity? By becoming a member of the association, you enter into an agreement regarding which information about you can be stored with us and who has access to this information, as described above. This agreement is valid indefinitely, as long as you are a member of the Frontside Chamber Music Association.
Do I have the right to have my information deleted? According to GDPR, you have the right to have your information deleted, but you will also lose your membership in the association. To request this, send an email to info@frontside-festival.se and ask for your stored information to be deleted.
