Young Swedish clarinet virtuoso Martin Fröst is one of the most charismatic and multi-talented of instrumentalists, appearing regularly in leading music centres and with major orchestras worldwide. In August 2007, he made his Salzburg Festival debut in two performances of the Mozart concerto with the Mozarteum Orchestra and Giovanni Antonini. Coming up in 2007/08 and following seasons are debuts with the Rotterdam Philharmonic, the Staatsorchester Stuttgart with Michael Schønwandt and the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen. Other highlights include Nielsen’s Clarinet concerto in Stockholm and Athens with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra and Vladimir Ashkenazy, and a tour with the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra and Gustavo Dudamel in summer 2008. Many orchestras are keen on having an enhanced relationship with him and he is therefore returning to the Stockholm Philharmonic, Residentie Orchestra and Hamburg Symphony not only to perform concertos, but also to give recitals and chamber music concerts.

Martin Fröst’s ambition to keep exploring new aspects of musical creativity is a great inspiration to many composers. These include Krzysztof Penderecki, whose Concerto for Three Clarinets Fröst premièred in Madrid in 2004, and Anders Hillborg whose work Peacock Tales, in all of its various musical guises, has attracted considerable attention for the elements of mime and choreography which the soloist has to incorporate into his performance. In 2006, Martin Fröst gave the world premiere of Kalevi Aho’s Concerto (commissioned for Fröst by the Borletti-Buitoni Trust) with Osmo Vänskä and the BBC Symphony Orchestra, as well as a new concerto by Sven David Sandstroem, co-commissioned by five orchestras including the Amsterdam Sinfonietta and Norwegian Chamber Orchestra. He has recorded the Aho concerto with the Lahti Symphony Orchestra and Osmo Vänskä and performs the work again with this orchestra in October 2007, as well as with the Czech Philharmonic and the BBC Scottish Symphony in 2009.A dedicated chamber musician, Martin Fröst works with such prominent instrumentalists as Mitsuko Uchida, Leif-Ove Andsnes, Roland Pöntinen, Heinrich Schiff, Christian Tetzlaff, Tabea Zimmermann and the Jerusalem Quartet.

Martin Fröst has recently taken up the role of Artistic Director of the ‘Winter Festival’ in Mora, Sweden - a unique, new Chamber Music Festival set against the shores of the frozen lake Orsa. In the 2008 festival, Martin Fröst will appear with the Dala Sinfonietta and guests Janine Jansen, Julian Rachlin, Maxim Rysanov, Barbara Hendricks, and others. Martin Fröst records exclusively for BIS. His most recent recording of the Nielsen clarinet concerto has been acclaimed “the benchmark Nielsen and likely to remain so for many years to come.”(BBC Music Magazine, July 2007).

Fröst studied with Hans Deinzer in Hannover and Sölve Kingstedt in Stockholm. He won the first prize in the Geneva Competition and received the Nippon Music Award, the Akzo Nobel Music Award and was one of the first recipients of the Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award. He has been asked to take part in concerts in the US and Europe celebrating their fifth anniversary in 2008. He was a BBC New Generation Artist from 2003-5. The Dortmund Konzerthaus has appointed him one of their pool of rising artists Junge Wilde from the start of 2006/07 for three years.