Åstrand, (Karl) Hans (Vilhelm)
Åstrand, (Karl) Hans (Vilhelm)
Åstrand, (Karl) Hans (Vilhelm), Swedish music historian and lexicographer; b. Bredaryd, Feb. 5, 1925. He studied organ, double bass, and cello; also took courses in Romance languages at the Univ. of Lund (Licentiate, 1958). He was music critic of the Malmö newspaper Kvällsposten (from 1950), founder-director of the Chamber Choir ’53 (1953–62), and founder (1960) and director (1965–71) of the Ars Nova Soc. for New Music. From 1963 to 1971 he taught music history at the Malmò National School of Drama, and then was music critic of Stockholm’s Veckojournalen (from 1976). He served as ed. in chief of the fundamental Swedish musical encyclopedia, Sohlmans musik-lexikon (5 vols., Stockholm, 1975-79). He was a board member (from 1966) and perpetual secretary (from 1973) of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music in Stockholm. In 1983 he was made a prof. and in 1985 received an honorary doctorate at the Univ. of Lund. Åstrand also contributed various articles on musicological and general music subjects to many books and journals.
Bibliography
B. van Boer Jr., ed., Gustav III and the Swedish Stage: Opera, Theatre and Other Foibles: Essays in Honor of H. A. (Lewston, Queenston, and Lampeter, 1993).
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire