The Swedish Composers’ Association (FST) has unanimously appointed Johan Blixt as its new chairman at its annual general meeting on 4 April. He has been acting chairman since the turn of the year and has previously been second vice chairman of the association.

Johan Blixt (born 1991 in Karlstad) is educated at the Ingesund Academy of Music and the Royal Academy of Music. In 2017 he received his master’s degree in composition with the chamber opera Dags, which was premiered at the Opera Academy. As a composer he moves between orchestral music, electroacoustic music, music drama and chamber music. He also has many years of experience as a theatre composer and sound designer at several of Sweden’s leading performing arts institutions. Together with Gustav Lindsten and Clara Guldberg Ravn, he runs the project Svävningar, which focuses on new music for recorder and electronics.

– We must cooperate more broadly, not only in Sweden but throughout Europe, to strengthen the rights of authors and ensure regrowth. For contemporary art music to develop and be relevant, it needs to be heard, discussed and found in more environments. Music must be experienced live – sound waves, acoustics and the audience’s coughs are part of the artistic encounter, comments the newly appointed chairman Johan Blixt.

Blixt has been the union chairman of the Royal Academy of Music’s Student Union and has been member of the university’s board, as well as being the chairman of the Stockholm Student Union Central Organisation (SSCO). In addition to his involvement in the FST board since 2020, he is a member of the boards of STIM, Svensk Musik, European Composers Forum (ECF), Nordic Composers Council (NKR) and Visby International Composers Centre (VICC).

In addition to his board assignments, he is deeply involved in the music scene in Sweden and has, among other things, sat on the artistic program council for the Sound of Stockholm festival and been chairman of the chamber music association Samtida Musik in Stockholm.