DESCRIPTION:
Tempo Mental Rap Performed by Stefan Östersjö in the Experimental Theater at the University of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur on November 1, 2012.

Received the prestigious Kompositionspreis der Landeshauptstadt Stuttgart

Stefan Östersjö, GUITARIST & DIRECTOR ENSEMBLE ARS NOVA "Edgerton's piece is one of the most ambitious and wide-ranging solo guitar works in the contemporary literature. The work features quite an unusual expressive range and a great variety of technical means, that include not only traditional performance techniques, such as rasgueado and strumming techniques and tapping, but also using other means to produce sustained source characteristics, such as using metal, wooden and glass objects, small fans and dishwashing pads on the strings. ... Edgerton takes a Frank Zappa transcription by Steve Vai as material for variations where the outer boundaries of guitar playing are questioned and re-considered. ... Edgerton's work is truly one of the most significant and explorative works to have ever been written for the acoustic guitar. It also gives an idea of how the complexity in procedures of compositional work within modernism can be brought in dialectic relations to a great variety of different modes of expression in contemporary music on the one hand and recent research in different disciplines on the other. In addition, the Tempo Mental Rap gives a strong idea of how strategies and instrumental approaches from experimental free improvisation can be brought into play in structured composition."

SEARCH FOR NEW STYLES OF EXPRESSION
The Swedish guitarist Stefan Östersjö performed the Tempo Mental Rap of the prizewinner Michael Edgerton, a highly virtuosic work. The well-known expressive possibilities and techniques of this instrument were blown up and thus new sound possibilities were developed.
Hans-Jörg Lund. Reutlinger General-Anzeiger 29.04.08

ELOQUENT GESTURES FULL OF TENSION
The guitarist Stefan Östersjö whistled along the strings, whispered fleeting noise-clusters and coaxed long drawn out tones from his instrument, sometimes similar to improvised, hectic gestures at dangerously fast speeds.
The "Tempo Mental Rap" was seen to be a ghostly or disembodied piece, in which conventional musical expressions were thrown out, ... Throughout the piece, innovative extensions involving sound production .. hinted at an otherworldly expression.
Ulrich Köppen, Stuttgarter Nachtrichten 28.04.08