Staffan Odenhall grew up in a home full of music. His mother was a cantor and his father a teacher. The first instrument he played was the recorder, later followed by the saxophone and the oboe. Already as a child he often played the recorder with his mother on her church duty.
Later on he played saxophone with local bands and also oboe with Motala symphony orchestra.
This encouraged his interest in music and Staffan felt the need for education in music.
Between 1974-76 Staffan studied at Folkliga musikskolan in Motala. 1977 he was employed as a teacher in saxophone and oboe at Södertälje music school. For many years he was the leader of the school big band and are still today writing arrangements for all the different ensembles at the school. Nowadays he is the schools teacher in music theory.
In 1981-83 he studied arrangement technic for Ziemovit Bownik, at that time teacher in music theory at Södertälje music school. Staffan also took lessons in counterpoint for the composer Hans Eklund. 1983-86 Staffan studied composing and arranging at the Royal College of music in Stockholm with Bengt Arne Wallin and Daniel Börtz as teachers among others.
A short turn to the world of schlager was made in 1989 with the song “When the storm is blowing” with lyrics of Andreas Nilsson and the song was in the finalheat at the melody festival that year. Unfortunately did it not win.
During the 90:s a lot of media music was written, like jingles and theme songs for TV shows.
( The most famous is the theme song for the swedish gameshow Jeopardy )
During this period ( 1985 and still ) Staffan regulary writes custom music for all kinds of different ensembles and artists: Marching bands,Concert bands, Brass bands, Jazz big bands, symphony orchestras, string orchestras and also all kinds of smaller bands. Some of his clients are Swedens most famous artists such as, Robert Wells, Owe Thörnqvist, Nisse Landgren, Sylvia Vrethammar, Martin Stenmarck, LaGayla Frazier, Frank Ådahl and many many more.
Staffan himself has been an active musician during all this time. From the 80:s and on, Staffan played with Sad Motion, Svenne and Lotta, Bob Manning, Papa Freud and several different jazzbands( like for example "Mynta"). From 89 and still he plays with the legendary band "Cotton Club" still working and still also smooth tenorsax in the cool launchband "Trombo Combo". At the end of the 80:s he also played with the famous” Jonny Olsson Big Band” and from 1994 -2002 he was a honking saxplayer with the great do up band “The Boppers”.
From 1994-95 Staffan began writing contemporary music. Several compositions has been performed, like Symphony nr. 1 which was performed by Södertälje symphony orchestra in february 2000. In may 2000 a Concerto grosso for string orchestra, commisioned by the conductor Alexander Hanson, was performed. The orchestra playing was the string orchestra “Capella Corinna”.
In autumn 2001 two new compositions were performed by conductor Maestro Rune Bergmann and “Capella Corinna” now completed with some wind and percussion instruments. It was two solo concertos, one written for the trumpet, and one for the altosaxophone. The trumpet soloist was the famous jazz musician Peter Asplund and the altosaxophone soloist was Christer Johnsson, professor in Saxophone at the Royal College of music in Stockholm.
These two concertos was later recorded, with the same soloists and released in october 2004 by the record company Phono Suecia. The orchestra playing on the record are members from Swedish Radio Symphony orchestra and Stockholm Fhilharmonic orchestra. Conductor also this time was Rune Bergmann.
The 25th of november 2004 a piano concerto was succesfully performed by the great musician Bengt Åke Lundin ( who also commisioned this concerto) The orchestra performing was Uppsala Chamber orchestra and the conductor was Gerard Korsten.
The recent work is music for choir soloists and chamber orchestra. After that a trombonconcerto. Also the first sketches of symphony nr 2. Later on I will probably write a Guitar concerto to the great guitarplayer George Gulyas.