Patrik Andrén is a Swedish composer known for his collaborations with Johan Söderqvist and Uno Helmersson on the series Bron (The Bridge) and films such as Kvinden I Buret (The Keeper of Lost Causes) and Fasandraeberne (The Absent One). In recent days, the videogame Battlefield 1 was released on 21st of October, scored by both Andrén and Söderqvist.
MT: Can you tell us something about your musical background?
I have always had a passion for music. I started playing the piano from an early age. My father was a jazz pianist and so was his father. So my choice of instrument became easy. I also played the drums and mallets as a teenager. This never became a principal instrument, but learning about rhythms has been a great asset later in life, especially in film music.
Then at the age of 19 I took the leap across the Atlantic to Boston where I attended Berklee College of Music. A fantastic school! At first, I went there to become a jazz pianist, but changed to film scoring that I studied for four years.
I stayed six years in Boston before I moved back to Stockholm, Sweden. I will not go into every detail, but I did a bunch of different things for a while. I got into pop, I worked as a producer, while gigging and touring. I covered most genres and styles and it was a straggly time for me. The fact that I tried to do so many different things led up to the point where I got fed up and wanted to focus more on one thing; film scoring.
So I contacted Johan Söderqvist and I started assisting him on his films. As the most established film composer in Sweden Johan guided me kindly into a better understanding of film. This mentorship was a pivot time for me for sure and all of a sudden my straggly background of styles became really useful.