Stig Jonas Pettersson

Originally from Sweden, S. J. Pettersson resides in Los Angeles where he teaches and composes music.  An autodidact of sorts, he privately studied counterpoint, orchestration and orchestral scores by composers as diverse as Bach, Prokofiev, Weil  and Michael Nyman eventually forging his own unique style – an anachronistic blend of 20th century minimalism with romanticism, classicism and  jazz.  In 2007 he completed a full orchestral ballet based on the architecture of Antonio Gaudi  entitled: Gaudi - Dancing About Architecture.  2009 marked the release of A Dream Play – A Chamber Opera for Soloists and Small Orchestra” based on the 1901 play by the Swedish playwright August Strindberg. Selected parts of the opera were performed in New York September 2009 as part of Vox Novus Composer’s Voice concert series, in May 2010 as part of Metropolis Opera Project’s M.O.P Bucket  and a concert scenario of the opera had its West Coast premiere / CD release event in June 2010 at Classical Music LA’s concert series at The Lounge in Hermosa Beach and subsequently at the painter Alexey Steele’s renowned Classical Underground venue in October 2010. 

In 2011 S.J. Pettersson completed a chamber ballet based on a unique interpretation of Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet, recorded by some of the finest new classical musicians of today. A collaboration with the Los Angeles dance/theatre company MiMoDa led to many dance performances to music from all three previous projects.  As a film maker, S.J. Pettersson is in the middle of a filmed dance documentary titled Freedom of Expression in which the pieces from Romeo & Juliet are performed in public places and landmarks around Los Angeles celebrating the constitutional right to express oneself through dance and movement in public. A song cycle / chamber ballet titled The Dracula Letters  based on letters and diary entries from Bram Stoker's novel Dracula is in the process of being recorded and his latest composition. A four part movement called Suite from Diary of a Seducer , inspired by the 1843 Søren Kierkegaard novel had its world premiere Nov 7th 2012 in Los Angeles at Maksim Velichkin’s ground breaking concert series Music@MiMoDa.

Additional film projects by S.J. Pettersson in the making are a documentary about independent classical music and a project called The Art of Classical Improvisation featuring  the world’s best known classical improviser; Dr. Richard Grayson and Maksim Velichkin.