Per Gunnar Petersson, with his breadth and knowledge of church music, has provided both Sweden, Europe and North and South America with over 100 works mainly for choir and organ since the 1990s. Petersson works at the center of Swedish church music life, both as organist and choir director and with many assignments on a national level. With a heartfelt tone, great seriousness, beauty, singability and a certain bite in the expression, Petersson's music continues to appeal to singers, conductors and organists in both the professional top tier and everyday church life.
Per Gunnar Petersson, born in 1954, took his cantor's degree as a 16-year-old and continued to Vienna to study organ, improvisation and composition at the Academy of Music. The studies ended with diplomas and unanimous awards from all professors. Petersson studied musicology at Lund University in 1978–79 and completed a pedagogical extension course at the Malmö Academy of Music in 1980–81. He has also conducted special studies in composition for Knut Nystedt in Oslo.
1978–2018 Per Gunnar Petersson held the position of organist in Älmhult's parish. He has had a large number of assignments on a national level, for example chairman of the Swedish Organ Society, vice chairman of the National Association of Church Musicians, member of the Music Council of the Church of Sweden and the board of directors of the Swedish Church Singing Association. Since 2019, Per Gunnar Peterson is an honorary member of the National Association of Church Musicians.
Per Gunnar Petersson's more than 100 compositions, in addition to approx. 90 preludes and arrangements, are published by publishers in Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Switzerland. The majority of the works can be found at Gehrmans Musikförlag in Stockholm. At Gehrmans Musikförlag, Petersson has also since 2013 been the editor of the Gränslöst series with, among other things, a number of collections of organ music of various kinds.
The emphasis in Petersson's work as a composer is on choir and organ. He has received orders from, among others, the Church of Sweden, Uppsala University,
Länsmusiken, Sensus and various dioceses and choirs in and outside of Sweden. Sveriges Radio/Berwaldhallen ordered music for the final of the conducting competition Eric
Ericsson Award 2003. His music is performed in Europe, North and South America and Petersson receives regular invitations to present and conduct his music, both in Sweden and other countries.
In 2024, Petersson was appointed composer-in-residence at Mogens Dahl's Chamber Choir in Copenhagen. Petersson's long-standing collaboration with the ensemble has resulted in, among other thingsSpring Has Now Unwrapped the Flowers, which was premiered in 2023 by Mogens Dahl's Chamber Choir and the King's Singers.
