Ty Citerman

The 49ers

Composer/guitarists Anders Nils­son and Ty Citer­man offer a unique take on the gui­tar duo: they per­form orig­i­nal arrange­ments of mod­ernist 20th cen­tu­ry music by com­posers Béla Bartók, Dmitri Shostakovich and Arnold Schoen­berg, in addi­tion to their own com­po­si­tions and con­cep­tu­al impro­vi­sa­tion­al works.

They have pre­miered and record­ed their arrange­ments of Arnold Schoen­berg’s “Sechs Kleine Klavier­stücke, Op. 19 (Six Lit­tle Piano Pieces)” (1913), which can be pre­viewed HERE. Their imag­i­na­tive re-orches­tra­tions of these works shed new light on their har­mon­ic rich­ness, angu­lar lyri­cism, polypho­ny and bold coun­ter­point due to the guitar’s tim­bre, extreme dynam­ic range, har­mon­ic over­tones, res­o­nance and his­to­ry of styl­is­tic ver­sa­til­i­ty. Unlike con­cert piano, the elec­tric gui­tar brings com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent con­no­ta­tions to the audi­ence and chal­lenges the lis­ten­ers’ expec­ta­tions. The 49ers can be deeply inti­mate, gen­tle, whim­si­cal and also explo­sive or fero­cious; Schoenberg’s work from just over a cen­tu­ry ago probed this entire range of expres­sion and emo­tion.

In 2025–26, The 49ers will pre­miere “Drei Klavier­stücke, Op. 11” (1909), a more ambi­tious and chal­leng­ing under­tak­ing for the ensem­ble. Com­posed near­ly 120 years ago, this piece is strik­ing in its con­tem­po­rary rel­e­vance, and is often cit­ed as the very first exam­ple of atonal­i­ty in Euro­pean con­cert music.

In addi­tion to their love of Schoenberg’s music, Nils­son and Citer­man share decades of study in con­tem­po­rary clas­si­cal music and have indi­vid­ual back­grounds steeped in jazz, impro­vised music and oth­er non-West­ern tra­di­tions. They both live in Brook­lyn, New York.