This Opus 3 catalogue contains a highly personnel selection of music. We seek out and record music and musicians with, in our view, unique qualities. All the music is acoustic and performed "unplugged" and includes both jazz, classical and folk music, while the performers range from internationally acclaimed instrumentalists to youngsters with a promising carreer ahead of them. For example: 

    The Stockholm Guitar Quartet is the only guitar quartet in the world to play on four differently tuned instruments. The quartet was formed in 1975 and its first recording, under the Opus 3 label, appeared in 1978. In this way the quartet spanned almost 6 full octaves, in contrast with the 3 -of the conventional 6 -stringed guitar. This unique combination of forces brought within range the kind  of chamber and orchestral music which, under normal conditions, is beyond the scope of the ordinary guitar. The Stockholm Guitar Quartet has aroused considerable attention far outside the guitar community as well, through this genuine and unique expansion of the guitar repertoir. 

Omnibus Wind Ensemble is a unique group because 
of its very wide repertoire and virtuoso playing, but also because of its deep interest in the very controversial composer Frank Zappa. Twelve men strong, and with the rather unusual combination of bassoons and double bass deep down, with a very colourful collection of individual musicians, many of them playing several instruments, this group has really created a style and sound of its own. In the third CD under the Opus 3 label "Music By Frank Zappaî" we are given a feast of acoustic instruments, in which ? as is only to be expected in Zappa's music ? a prominent role is given to a large number of percussion instruments. 

     In the recordings of Mozart´s Clarinet Concerto and Clarinet Quintet, the solo part is taken, most unusually, by a basset clarinet -an instrument whose range exstands four semitones below that of the ordinary clarinet. It is not commonly known that Mozart actually wrote his Concerto and Quintet for this very instrument -played here by bassette clarinet specialist Kjell Fagéus. 
      In five recordings we also meet one of the worlds most out-standing swing vibes player, Lars Erstrand, who in 1981 was ranked number 3 by the English Jazz Journal International -hard on the heels of his "mentors" Lionel Hampton and Milt Jackson! 

    Sweden has also several top flight musicians in classical jazz! Tomas Örnberg´s BLUE FIVE, or the Swedish Jazz Kings as they sometimes label themselves, which today preserves the twenties and the thirties music of Louis Armstrong, features in three recordings under the Opus 3 label. American clarinettist Kenny Davern, of Soprano Summit and other fame and Bob Barnard on trumpet from Australia is joined by one 
of the world´s best Armstrong interpreters: Bent Persson. Their second recording (CD 8003) received the 1982 Swedish grammophone Prize and was also ranked by Jazz Journal International as the very best new jazz recording of that year.

[Catalog Contents] [Latest Releases] [Opus3 Philosophy] 
[Super Audio CD] [Vinyl] [LP titles] [Unique Selection] [About Opus3] [Order] [Home]