Press Release, May 16 2024
Opera singer from Swedish north wins a quarter million SEK
The Mogren Music Prize 2024 is awarded to the 29 year old bass-baritone Kristoffer Töyrä. The prize sum, SEK 250,000, is awarded for an exceptional voice as well as a purposeful expression and a musical style that the jury believes can lead to a successful international career.
“My sense of playfulness has led me to become an opera singer. When I grew up, there were few opportunities to explore the arts. But in my family, we invented music games almost daily, and that contributed to decades of education. All children should have that opportunity, regardless of where they live or what family they belong to,” says Kristoffer Töyrä.
Kristoffer Töyrä is awarded the Mogren Music Prize 2024, with a prize sum of SEK 250,000, for “remarkable voice resources, purposeful expression and a musical style”. The 29 year old northern Swedish bass-baritone has recently stepped out of the choir at the Gothenburg Opera and is establishing himself as a natural soloist.
“Before I started working in Gothenburg, I had never even been in an opera house. To receive music lessons as a kid in northern Sweden was near impossible, there were few teachers and not enough opportunities. To win the Mogren Prize is very important to me, and it reminds us all what an important role the music schools play in enabling more to work with this,” says Kristoffer Töyrä.
The Mogren Music Prize’s goal is to support young, promising musicians in the beginning of their careers, in the hopes of facilitating their step into the arts.
“A strong cultural life is so important, both in terms of well-being and for the unique spaces it creates, where different thoughts and feelings can meet. Kristoffer has, with playfulness, curiosity and drive, managed to go from successful choir singer to a promising soloist, both in Sweden and internationally,” says Birgitta Svendén, convener of the Mogren Foundation’s nominating committee for music as well as former CEO of the Royal Swedish Opera.
From the jury motivation: “Kristoffer Töyrä has remarkable voice resources, a purposeful expression and musical sense of style. There is bravery and playful simplicity in his development and as a young, promising bass-baritone, he possesses all the makings of becoming a grand asset at the national and international opera scene.”
Press images to download can be found here.
About
Mogrenstiftelsen
The Mogren Foundation annually awards two prizes for human well-being, in medicine and classical music. The aim is to promote research and education. The Music Prize is awarded to newly graduated musicians who have just started their professional careers, while the Medicine Prize goes to professional clinicians who place great emphasis on empathy and patient contact.
The Nominating Committee for the Mogren Music Prize consists of Birgitta Svendén, royal singer and Chair of the Nominating Committee; Magnus Svensson, pianist; Tobias Theorell, Artistic Director at Folkoperan; and Tobias Ringborg, conductor and violinist.
The foundation's donor and founder is Håkan Mogren, 1944–2021, Swedish engineer and business leader. Håkan Mogren was primarily active in food and pharmaceutical industries, including as CEO of Astra and later as a board member of Astra Zeneca. In 2012, he established the Håkan Mogren Foundation to promote the development of his two strong interests, music and medicine.
Håkan Mogren passed away on December 10, 2021.
About
Kristoffer Töyrä
Kristoffer Töyrä was born in 1995 in Luleå and sings a bass-baritone. He began his education as a singer at Framnäs Folk High School and went on to receive an undergraduate degree in classical singing at the School of Music in Piteå.
Since 2019, Kristoffer Töyrä works as a singer in the Gothenburg Choir. In Gothenburg he has also performed as Il Commendantore in Don Giovanni, Colline in La Boheme, the Innkeeper in Selma Lagerlöf’s The Treasure, and Wilhelm in Hoffman’s Adventures.
Kristoffer has been the oratorio soloist in Händel’s Messiah in Piteå and has performed solo in several concerts, in among other places, the Gothenburg Cathedral.
He also has vast experience as a choir singer in Arctic Male Voices, Erik Westerberg’s vocal ensemble, the Swedish Youth Choir as well as the Piteå School of Music Master Choir and chamber choir.
For more information, please contact
Kristoffer Töyrä, +46 70-514 30 29, kristoffer.toyra@gmail.com
Birgitta Svendén, Convening Chair of the Mogren Music Prize Nominating Committee, +46 70-533 36 99, birgitta.svenden@gmail.com
Fabian Mogren, Chair of the Mogren Foundation, +46 70-844 94 23, fabian.mogren@mogrenstiftelsen.se
