Greetings, dear visitors! It' been a very busy summer, and there's plenty to report:
Tora Augestads brilliant performance of "Hate Songs" with the equally brilliant Finnish Chamber Orchestra and Jukka-Pekka Saraste, can now be heard in the audio section!
Another audio- and catalog addition, is a new piece for solo violin, "Vita", inspired by the murals of Emanuel Vigeland.
Exquisitely performed by violinist Bjarne Magnus Jensen, the work was a private commission for a wedding, and was a welcome change of pace after a summer dictated by the demands of scoring "Spelet om Christian Frederik", a pageant celebrating the bicentennial of Norway's constitution, requiring more than an hour's worth of music in the form of songs, choruses, and lots of underscore.
The pageant sold out all performances of its initial run, and will be staged biannually in Nesparken in the southeastern town of Moss.
In other news, "The Canterville Ghost" was featured as part of Valdres Sommersymfoni's program, and will also make an appearance during this year's Festival for Church, Arts & Culture in Kristiansund. "And Now Abide" has enjoyed a month-long tour of Japan with the Norwegian Girl's Choir, for whom I will soon be embarking on another larger project.
The coming weeks will be filled with proof-reading a new batch of scores for Norsk Musikforlag (among them "A Portrait of Zhou" and "Music for Orchestra"), as well as work on my Sonata for Double Bass & Piano, a new song cycle for Sandefjord's Church Music Festival, and a timpani concerto for Håkon Kartveit and the Bergen Philharmonic!