Jonas Frølund (b. 1996 in Roskilde) is a versatile young Danish clarinettist and entrepreneur, graduated from the Conservatoire de Paris in 2022. He is currently pursuing a career as a soloist and chamber musician alongside his important engagements in the Danish Chamber Orchestra as solo clarinetist and chairman, and in the emerging wind quintet V Coloris as clarinetist and co-founder.
During his student years, Jonas was awarded 1st prize in the 5th Lisbon International Clarinet Competition in 2019 and an honourable mention in the international music competition Prague Spring in 2022, and other recent accolades include the Rødovre Music Prize 2024 and the Fair Practice Prize from the Danish Composers' Society in 2023. In 2021 Jonas received the Critics' Prize from the Danish Music Critics Association and the opportunity for an Artist Choice on BBC Radio 3 in May 2023.
In chamber music, Jonas frequently collaborates with internationally recognised musicians such as the Danish String Quartet, Trio con Brio Copenhagen, Aleksander Sitkovetsky, Marianna Shirinyan, Torleif Thedéen, Andreas Brantelid and Bjarke Mogensen, and through his relationship with conductor Pierre Bleuse he participated in the Pablo Casals Festival in Prades, France in 2023. As a soloist, he has performed Mozart's Clarinet Concerto with the Danish Chamber Orchestra and conductor Ádám Fischer, Carl Stamitz' Concerto No. 4 with the baroque orchestra Arte dei Suonatori, and Carl Nielsen's Clarinet Concerto with the National Youth Ensemble (DUEN).
Jonas is strongly committed to new music and often collaborates with prominent Danish composers such as Lil Lacy, Mette Nielsen, Birgitte Alsted, Bent Sørensen, Hans Abrahamsen, Poul Ruders, Rune Glerup, Matias Vestergård and Jesper Koch. So far, Jonas has premiered 34 solo and chamber music works by leading Danish and international composers, and Jonas' project "The Land of Childhood" in 2024-25 will feature seven more premieres of solo pieces by Danish composers, including some of the above.
In October 2023, Jonas and his friends in V Coloris organised their "Once Upon..." chamber music festival in Copenhagen for the second year in a row, this year entitled "Once Upon... Curiosity". During 2023, V Coloris also organised a concert series in Copenhagen called "5Concerts" to explore the potential of the Copenhagen bus line 5C as a cultural guide. Among Jonas' other ongoing projects is the release of audio and sheet music (Edition Wilhelm Hansen) for Per Nørgård's important work Spell (1973) in a new version (2023) by Jonas and colleagues in his Trio Spell, a concert series in autumn 2025 centred around the first performances of Bent Sørensen's new clarinet quintet commissioned by Jonas and the Nightingale String Quartet in venues less known for classical music concerts, and three musical-literary Shrovetide events for 2025 with commissioned works by composer Birgitte Alsted.
"SOLO ALONE AND MORE", released on 11 August 2023 on OUR Recordings, is Jonas Frølund's debut solo album and the second release in collaboration with OUR after the critically acclaimed Poul Ruders album recorded with Rudersdal Kammer Solister (2022). "SOLO ALONE AND MORE" was selected as "CD der Woche" in the German music magazine Classical music today accompanied by a review with a score of 10 / 10 / 10, and in connection with the release, Jonas was featured in Gramophone Music Magazine's "One to Watch". Also, as a result of the release of "SOLO ALONE AND MORE" in November 2023, Jonas was named "New Artist of the Month" in the American music magazine Musical America. Jonas also features on the recent Dacapo Records release Frozen Momentsand upcoming releases include Rune Glerup's Clarinet Quintet plus String Quartet No. 1 (Dacapo Records) recorded with Quatuor Diotima. For full discography see the menu on this website, and for all reviews related to "SOLO ALONE AND MORE" please visit www.ourrecordings.com.
These days, Jonas is opening up more and more to other genres and has just started a collaboration with the Nordic folk music trio Stundom. Also, in 2023 he acquired a 1927 C. G. Conn tenor saxophone from 1927, which is the sixth member of his instrument collection, which otherwise includes Buffet Crampon A, B, Basset and bass clarinets, as well as a duduk (traditional Armenian wind instrument) in F major/D minor.
