In 2023 Professor Mika Pelo was selected for a composer residency by the Peterson-Berger Foundation at Sommarhagen, the home of the late Swedish composer Wilhelm Peterson-Berger. As part of the residency, Pelo composed a new work, Akvareller (“Watercolors”). The composition was premiered on August 11, 2024, with violinist Hrabba Atladottir and pianist Martin Hellström during the summer “Music Days” at Sommarhagen. The piano used in the performance belonged to Peterson-Berger.

Wilhelm Peterson-Berger was a Swedish composer and music critic who lived from 1867 to 1942. In his later years he composed at Sommerhagen, which is on an island near Östersund in central Sweden. 

The program included San-San (2010) by this year’s resident composer Lei Feng Johansson as well as Peterson-Berger’s Sonata for Violin and Piano No. 1 in E Minor.

Sommarhagen was built in 1914 by the composer, critic, and music writer Wilhelm Peterson-Berger, who is remembered, among other things, for Frösöblomster with piano pieces such as Sommarsång, Vid Frösö kyrka and Intåg i Sommarhagen.

The composer’s home, which is now a museum, features influences from national romanticism and art nouveau and is characterized by Peterson-Berger’s ideas in terms of design, interior design and coloring. It has been compared to “a timber-lined fortress with a summer-light interior” and was named in 2000 by the magazine Forum as one of Sweden’s best interiors of the 20th century.

The composer residency is carried out in collaboration with the Association of Swedish composers and with the support of Region Jämtland Härjedalen.