Anders Loguin, founding member of the Swedish percussion ensemble Kroumata, died November 3, 2011 at Ersta Hospice in Stockholm after a short period of illness.



Anders Loguin began to play snare drum at the age of six, followed by drumset, but it was not until age 14 that he began to study the marimba. He attended the Royal College of Music in Stockholm (Kungliga Musikhögskolan) and graduated in 1977.



Anders Loguin was invited to join the faculty there shortly after graduation and continued to teach there for the next 34 years, becoming head of the percussion department in 1984. “I couldn’t be without teaching,” he told Percussive Notes in a 1999 interview. “It’s such an important part of the whole identity of music making.”



In 1975, at the age of 21, Anders Loguin obtained a position at the Stockholm Philharmonic as a regular player, and continued to freelance as a percussionist with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Opera, and Stockholm Percussion Ensemble. In 1979, he joined the Oslo Philharmonic, commuting back and forth from Norway to Sweden. He also served as the Artistic Director of the Nordic Percussion Festival in 1991.



In 1978, Anders Loguin founded Kroumata with Ingvar Hallgren, Anders Holdar, Leif Karlsson, and Martin Steisner. “We had talked about making chamber music around percussion, with percussion the core of everything,” Loguin remembered. The ensemble became a fulltime business in 1981, and the members were employees of the state-funded Swedish National Concert Institute.



Kroumata was Sweden's only permanent contemporary music ensemble. They performed all across Europe, Asia (including Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong and India) and the United States. The ensemble, with different members over the years, performed in concert at PASIC ’84 in Ann Arbor, Michigan; with Keiko Abe at PASIC ’88 in San Antonio, Texas; at PASIC ’95 in Phoenix, Arizona; and at PASIC 2003 in Louisville, Kentucky.



Kroumata celebrated its 20th anniversary by hosting and performing at the Stockholm International Percussion Event (SIPE) in 1998. Loguin served as Artistic Director for SIPE. The King and Queen of Sweden were great fans of Kroumata and attended many concerts by the ensemble, including their 20-year Jubilee in February 1998. Their 25th anniversary included a performance with the Los Angeles Philharmonic as well as the PASIC concert.



After three decades with Kroumata, Anders Loguin left the ensemble. During his time with Kroumata, they had performed in more than 40 countries and premiered more than 200 works.



In 2008, Anders Loguin founded a new percussion group named after the first piece written for them, Glorious Percussion. This quintet featured members from four countries: Loguin and Anders Haag from Sweden, Mika Takehara from Japan, Eirik Raude from Norway, and Robyn Schulkowsky from the U.S. The piece they premiered — with the Gothenburg Symphony, under the direction of Gustavo Dudamel — was a new concerto by Sofia Gubaidulina for percussion quintet and orchestra.



They also performed this concerto, Glorious Percussion, with the Berlin Philharmonic in September 2009 and with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, again under Dudamel, in May 2011 in addition to several other orchestras.



Anders Loguin was also a member of the trio RoMA, comprised of Roland Pöntinen (piano) and Mats Zetterqvist (violin) and named for Roland, Mats, and Anders. With such an unusual instrumentation, they commissioned several new pieces from Swedish composers.



In addition to being a performing percussionist and longtime educator, Anders Loguin also conducted orchestras and ensembles both in Sweden and abroad. One of his principal conducting teachers was Finnish composer and conductor Jornma Panula. Anders Loguin taught master classes all over the world and served as a juror on many international competitions for percussion, marimba and chamber music, including the 5th World Marimba Competition in Stuttgart, Germany in 2008.



In October 2011, Naxos released a new CD by Sofia Gubaidulina called Fachwerk, featuring Geir Draugsvoll on bayan (Russian accordion) and Loguin on percussion.



In 2002, Anders Loguin was elected as a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music. In 2008, his majesty the King of Sweden awarded Loguin the royal medal “Litteris et Artibus” for his outstanding contribution in the field of music and art in Sweden and abroad.