On Sept 16, 2017 William Whitehead premiered my new piece Wir danken Dir, Herr Jesu Christ.  The event took place in Stavanger Cathedral as a part of Norsk Orgelfestival.  I am very proud to be a part of the international Orgelbüchlein project.

A very inspiring collaboration took place on Sept 15, as Barratt-Dues Juniororkester commissioned and premiered In Short, a 5-minute piece written in occasion of the 100 years anniversary of the Norwegian Composers Society. The concert took place during the Ultima festival, at Sentralen in Oslo. The rehearsals were lead by amazing energetic Soon-Mi Chung. On the concert, the orchestra played as they always do, without a conductor, and with amazing skill.  This also marked the 25 years since our first collaboration, "Etyder over Tiden".

More than 140 volunteer musicians, youngsters and children participated in the commissioned opening piece of Varen, Randaberg culture scene not far from Stavanger. The event lasted for 25 minutes and featured 2 vintage ship engines, 2 tractors, a number of motorcycles, flute players, brass bands, dancers, drummers, guitar players from the local Culture school, a male choir and an accordion group, custom made steel percussion, recording of the Nautofon at Tungenes lighthouse, and more. The dancers formed their own words with the 8 letters from Gilles & Cecilie studio, ending with the slogan TENK SJØL (think yourself). Idea, staging, direction and composition by Nils Henrik Asheim.

 

"Stormen - Forteljinga om Ferdinand og Miranda" will be performed again at Den Norske Opera og Ballet, Oct 22 - Nov 1 2017. Music by Nils Henrik Asheim, libretto by Rune Belsvik. 

On April 27, "Deep Toccata" for organ and orchestra is performed by Badische Staatskapelle, organist Carsten Wiebusch and conductor Johannes Willig. The location is Christuskirche, with its monumental Klais organ. 

This piece was originally written for the Trondheim Cathedral in 2014. It has now been revised.

A few words about the music: A "Toccata" is a piece with lots of motion, normally executed by one performer. The prefix «Deep» may here indicate several layers of motion, different tasks being performed at different speeds. Together they form a «sea of sound» where fast and slow time are working in parallel.

From the start of the piece we can hear the organ diving down into the orchestra, transmitting motion and energy and then becoming immersed in the resulting sound web. This basic gesture recurs again and again, interpreted in different ways, in a variation form.

Apart from the improvisation-like detail work, the construction of the piece follows a simple architectural plan.  Comparable to the paintings of Escher, with endless staircases, there is a harmonic structure moving slowly downwards at a constant speed through all the piece. Against this, there is a counterpoint of ascending lines that becomes more and more prominent as we approach the end.

There are many other sources of inspiration: the film «Inception» with its architecture that is mirrored upwards, where you finally are not sure what is up and down. Also, Gustave Doré’s exuberant illustrations to «Paradise Lost» have been in my mind.

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Renaissance and Baroque chorale settings along with new improvised sounds - on a wonderful instrument. Live recording from Kongsberg, Glogerfestspillene, Jan 28, 2017. To be played at loud volume.

Read more about the concert (in Norwegian)

Entering 2017, my days are very much filled with studying repertoire and developing new concert programmes. There are festival appearances coming up on the historical instruments of Kongsberg and Røros. Also, there are nice projects in Germany. There are also recording projects. With organ, but also a Kitchen Orchestra project with Roma musicians from Slovakia.

I had the great pleasure to work again with Stavanger Symphony Orchestra, this time for a commentary on Beethoven. The occasion was the Norwegian Culture Council's annual conference, which took place in Stavanger konserthus. I was asked to conceive something around the theme of The Critic, and contacted the author Øyvind Rimbereid. We had worked together before, on the Orgelsjøen project. I fed him with my ideas on deconstructing Beethoven, and my plan to include quotations from his contemporary critics (which varied between elevated praise and completely lack of understanding). I also wanted to create an involvment in the audience, asking them to use their mobile phones, both to disturb them a bit and to make them ideally participate in the large choir of opinions, the of critics, of likes and dislikes (even of the voices of the "millions" of the Ode to Joy).