Pär Hagström Composes Score for San Francisco Ballet's New Work MADCAP

Epidemic Sound, the market-leading platform for restriction-free music, today announced that musician Pär Hagström has composed the score for one of the San Francisco Ballet's newest works, MADCAP. The ballet premiered on January 20 during next@90, the new works festival opening the San Francisco Ballet's 90th anniversary repertory season at the War Memorial Opera House in San Francisco, and will run through February 11, 2023.

Hagström's first composition for a ballet company, MADCAP is a contemporary dance piece choreographed by Danielle Rowe and dissects the anatomy of a clown and uses its motion as inspiration for the choreography. Set to eerie, carnival-inspired music composed by Hagström and orchestrated by Philip Feeney, MADCAP also offers an unusual task for the dancers: using their voices with recitation, singing, percussive hisses and hoops, and hollers throughout the ballet.

Rowe approached Hagström about orchestrating her newest work after hearing music from his project Luella Gren. For MADCAP, Hagström re-orchestrated seven of his existing tracks, which will be performed live by the orchestra at the San Francisco Ballet.

"I'm honored to partner with Danielle Rowe and the legendary San Francisco Ballet on this project," said Pär Hagström. "I have been producing, composing, and recording theater and dance music for over a decade, which makes this a career milestone. It's been a pleasure to collaborate with this incredible team, and I'm sincerely grateful to Epidemic Sound for helping me make this possible."

Around 2016, Hagström made the transition from being a touring musician into composing and producing full-time. As his music transformed to attract a more theatrical audience, Hagström joined Epidemic Sound to share his music with a wider audience. Since then, his music has been played more than 150 million times on music streaming platforms.

"Pär's sound world captivated me immediately and inspired a ballet like nothing I've ever created before," said Danielle Rowe. "MADCAP blossomed from Pär's haunting, eerie music and stirred me to create a dance world that embodied that. I'm thrilled to be collaborating with such a wonderful artist and excited to witness it all come together."

MADCAP premiered on January 20 at the War Memorial Opera House in San Francisco and runs through February 11.