Swedish musician and professor of recorder playing, born March 26, 1942, died May 25, 2025.
Clas Pehrsson has had extensive international activities as a recorder soloist and chamber musician and has collaborated with, among others, Drottningholm's Baroque Ensemble in many countries in Europe and Asia, as well as in the USA and Australia. As a soloist or musical director, he has participated with over 30 recordings, mainly on the record label BIS. He has also had some activities as a violinist, alto violinist and conductor. During 1990–1992 he was artistic director at Vadstena Academy.
In 1965 Clas Pehrsson became head teacher of recorder at Kungl. The Academy of Music (KMH) and was promoted there to professor 2000. Until 2003, he headed the head of the department Collegium Musicum established at KMH 1994 with main responsibility for the education in performance practice and early music. From time to time, he has also had several other assignments at KMH, such as education leader, chairman of several committees (such as the KU committee and the Teachers' Proposal Committee), internationalization manager, vice-rector and deputy rector.
Clas Pehrsson has represented KMH in its participation in two research schools established by the Swedish Research Council in 2001: Aesthetic learning processes, principal at the then Stockholm University of Education, and Advanced Program in Reflective Practices, principal Royal. University of Technology (KTH), where they developed research in the borderland between science and art. During the years 2004–2009, he had a special assignment to develop artistic research and postgraduate education at KMH. He retired as Professor Emeritus in the spring of 2009 and has since the spring of 2012 ended his activities at KMH.
Clas Pehrsson was elected in 2001 as a member of Kungl. The Academy of Music (KMA), where he worked for several years in the Chamber Music Board, the Scholarship Board and the Research and Publications Board (now two separate boards). In 2014, he was awarded the academy's main award: the Medal for the Promotion of the Art of Music.
Clas Pehrsson has otherwise had extensive activities as a lecturer (such as at leadership courses within Combitech AB, IKEA, Vattenfall AB, etc.), as well as supervisors (postgraduate education at several universities). Today he works mainly as a writer and translator (from German to Swedish).