Festspelen i Piteå - A flare for Bodil Malmsten

A flare for Bodil Malmsten
 

Bjärme, Jämtland. It is an almost improbable coincidence that the same small village in Norrland's interior, with less than 70 inhabitants, nurtured two such brilliant talents. The author Bodil Malmsten was born in Bjärme in 1944. The artist and songwriter Ellen Sundberg was born in Bjärme in 1992. The two are only a hundred meters and 48 years apart. When Bodil Malmsten died in 2016, she left a big void behind. A wayward authorship and a distinctive portrayer of the experience of growing up in both the city and the country no longer existed. Malmsten ended up in a foster home in Vällingby as a teenager. A background whose split nature was a recurring theme in her writing. Not least in the acclaimed autobiography My First Life.
 

Since her debut in 2013, Ellen Sundberg has released four English-language albums, two of which were recorded in the USA, in Texas and Nashville, respectively. She had her wider breakthrough with the critically acclaimed album You sold my ticket, where she interprets Kjell Höglund, where she showed a rare ability to portray text. In email correspondence, Bodil encouraged Ellen Sundberg to start singing in Swedish. Ellen had previously considered bringing out the inherent music in Bodil Malmsten's poetry. But the specific goal of creating something uniform for the stage provided a welcome input into the selection of texts that had previously been lacking. Patterns and themes soon emerged. About death, loss, longing and exclusion. About rootlessness and roots. About city and country. And soon the work began to immortalize the music that flowed from Ellen also on record.
 

A flare for Bodil Malmsten is both an album and a musical performance. The album was released in 2021 and the show then made a successful tour through Sweden. Now the turn has come to Piteå and the Festival.
 

The concert is part of the Festspelpasset 2024.