Emil Nilsson is a composer and performer who lives and works in between Stockholm and Gothenburg.

Through the subdued, reticent, and carefully constructed spaces that his pieces inhabit, an artistic practice takes form that places an emphasis on both sound and silence–on absence and presence. With the deliberate austerity of musical material in which the pieces unfold, there is striving to invite listeners into a heightened state of awareness where even the most minimal changes of timbre are seen as bearing purpose. It is an artistic and musical language where the ambition is to continuously challenge and activate human perception past its own thresholds. Here, listening becomes both a creative and critical act, one that balances between focus and dispersion, closeness, and distance–an act that inevitably is attentively performed in an acoustic space together with other listeners, as shared moments in time.

“Listening remains, to me, an open field–an elusive and continuously shifting terrain in which new experiences, new perceptions, and new forms of understanding can become possible”.

Nilsson has collaborated with both Swedish and international ensembles, including Curious Chamber Players, MotoContrario, Gageego, Norrbotten NEO, Esbjerg Ensemble, and Musica Vitae. His works have also been presented at festivals across Europe, among them Impuls Festival, ilSUONO Contemporary Music Week, Festival Contrasti, Kalvfestivalen, and Vindögafestivalen.

In 2022, he founded ensemble hybrid as a platform for performing his own work and curating contemporary music. Alongside his compositional practice, he performs as a clarinetist with the ensemble and in a variety of other projects. Since 2025, Nilsson serves as artistic director of Kalvfestivalen. He is also engaged as a concert curator with Levande Musik in Gothenburg.