Anders Lundegård

Who is Anders Lundegård?

Anders Olof Lundegård is a Swedish classical saxophonist. Lundegård is best known for his cello-like tone and intense performance style.

Anders Lundegård was born in Växjö, Sweden, and made his debut at seventeen as a soloist and broadcast performer during a youth artist festival in Stockholm. He earned his undergraduate degree as a student of Christer Johnsson at the Royal Swedish Academy of Music in Stockholm, whereupon he received both a Fulbright and a Sweden – America Foundation award to continue his studies in the United States. Lundegård completed his Master’s, Certificate of Performance and Doctoral degrees at Northwestern University, studying under the renowned saxophonist Frederick Hemke. During this time he received three awards, toured with the Swedish chamber orchestra Musica Vitæ, had several works dedicated to him, and won the Northwestern Solo Concerto Competition, performing the subject of his dissertation: the Lars-Erik Larsson Saxophone Concerto.

Lundegård has taught and toured extensively in Scandinavia and America, performing contemporary chamber, Baroque transcriptions and Classical concerti. As a young musician, he claims to have been inspired by an anecdote from the saxophone’s early experimental stages in the 1850s. During an informal visit to the Belgian inventor, Adolph Sax’s, sweatshop, the Italian composer Gioachino Rossini proclaimed the sound of the new instrument as "the most tender and pleasing he had ever heard." Lundegård professed goal is to capture this "original sound," and he is particularly known for his solo recitals on alto and soprano sax, which include Bach Cello Suites as well as Lundegård’s own compositions.