Biography
Mathias Venge Biography
Mathias Venge is a Swedish guitar player, composer and producer. His music career began in Uppsala, where he studied classical guitar and played in various local rock bands. After graduating from Musicians Institute in L.A. he started touring with some of Sweden’s best known artists such as E-Type, Joey Tempest (the lead singer in the band Europe), Anders Glenmark and Jennifer Brown.
In 1996 Mathias started working with the great songwriter and producer Jörgen Elofsson (Kelly Clarkson, Agneta Fältskog, Jennifer Lopez etc.) as a songwriter, guitar player and producer. Together they worked with artists and songwriters like Il Divo, Bryan Adams, Robbie Neville and more.
Mathias credits include co-producing one song on the first Il Divo multi-platinum album, vocal engineering for Britney Spears (When I Found You) and co-writing/co-producing several hit singles with artists such as Bellefire, Ana, Peter Jöback and Marc Sway.
Since 2005 Mathias runs his own studio and has written with Sharon Vaughn (Waylon Jennings, Wille Nelson), Andreas Carlsson, (Backstreet boys, Katy Perry), Don Black (Andrew Lloyd Webber, John Barry), Kim Richey (Trisha Yearwood, Dixie Chicks) and many more.
Mathias co-wrote and produced three songs for Swedish/Lebanese artist Therese Neaime including the U.S. FMQB AC TOP 40 hit “The Future”. Further, Mathias has co-written the singles ”Up” and ”Brand new day” as well as the hit single “Thank you” for Swedish artist Amy Diamond. He also has had cuts for Asian girl groups Girls Generation and After School as well as co-writing the number one hit ”W strong slonca” for Polish artist Ewelina Lisowska.
In 2008 Mathias and Sara Jangfeldt wrote the music to the new pop/rock-musical “Grymt!” for the Gothenburg Opera which was a success both among critics and the audience.
Since 2013 Mathias and composer & arranger Martin Östergren has focused on writing and producing music for the stage. Successes include composing new music for ”Ronja Robbersdaughter” and ”Shakespeare in love” for Stockholms stadsteater, ”Brothers Lionheart” for Uppsala Stadsteater and original musical ”Carmencita Rockefeller- Princess of Japan” for Malmö Opera and Gothenburg Opera.
2016-2019 Mathias was also an in demand musical supervisor, arranger and guitar player and worked with shows like ”Return to the forbidden planet”, ”Elvis, Cash the killer & me”, ”Hair ”and box office smash ”Kort, Glad och tacksam” with Swedish superstar Pernilla Wahlgren.
2020 began with rocket speed being musical supervisor for “Pernilla Wahlgren har hybris” as well as parallell production- and composition assignments for stand up comedian Magnus Betnér’s show ”Men Gud!” at Göta Lejon and the dance theatre ”Kollision” at Soppteatern/KulturhusetStadsteatern.
Mathias also has returned to his roots with his new rock band Cloud Cirkus who released their first single ”You of all people” in August 2020.
On Christmas Day 2020 ”Se upp för Jönssonligan” directed by Tomas Alfredson premiered on C-more and was seen by record breaking 1,1 million people in three days. Mathias composed and produced various music for the film together with Martin Jonsson.
In the same year, a new collaboration with Björn Ulvaeus began: as musical director and arranger for the performance “Pippi på Cirkus” which premiered in 2022 at Cirkus in Stockholm and was performed in the summers of 2022-2023.
Mathias also produced a concept album with the new Pippi music with guest artists such as Helen Sjöholm, Björn Dixgård (Mando Diao), Seinabo Sey and Benjamin Ingrosso.
The next major assignment was the performance “Alltid vara vi” (2023) at KulturhusetStadsteatern, based on Veronica Maggio and Oskar Linnros´s music and directed by Alexander Mörk Eidem. The performance, which takes place in a music studio, was both a success with the audience and critics and was seen by over 70,000 people.
Simultaneously Mathias worked on “Alla skriker ingen hör” Kulturhuset Spira (Autumn 2023). A newly written youth musical about a dysfunctional family and their ghosts. With beats and cinematic trip hop, the story and music are woven together into a suggestive and eerie show. Mathias wrote the music together with Rikard Bergqvist (script & direction) and produced the tracks and did the creative sound design.
On November 15, 2024, “Tomten är far till alla barnen” premiered at Cirkus. The beloved film was transformed into a successful stage performance with a lot of music composed by Mathias and Rikard. Mathias produced all the music and sound effects performed in the performance. ”Tomten”was well received and was seen by over 50,000 people and won the Humor Prize – the stage show of the year 2024.
In the fall of 2025, Mathias will play in the super hit “Lonely together” at KulturhusetStadsteatern based on Aviciis music (idea, choreography and direction by Benke Rydman) as well as composing music for “Rat pack Rhapsody” with a planned premiere on April 24, 2026 also at KulturhusetStadsteatern’s Main Stage.
