Conlon Nancarrow’s Piano Studies orchestrated for Pipe Organ and electronics. With improvisations exploring similar aesthetics using algorithmic improvisation software. Video recorded in Nidaros Cathedral October 31 2019
Øyvind Brandtsegg: Orchestration of Piano Studies for Pipe Organ. Computer improvisation software. Marimba Lumina
Petra Bjørkhaug: Organ
Jan Tro: Mentor and initiator of the project in 2012
Nils Henrik Aasheim: Re-initiator (2019) and inspiration.
Thomas Henriksen: Sound recording
Camtimul productions: Video recording and editing.
Mixed by Øyvind Brandtsegg and Thomas Henriksen.
Additional video editing by Øyvind Brandtsegg
Conlon Nancarrow (1912– 1997) is well known for his studies for Player Piano, as the intricate compositions would often exceed human performer limitations. He coded the music on paper rolls to be performed by the mechanic instrument. In this manner, he created complex, jazzy and hypnotic compositions based on algorithmic techniques and complex mathematical relations. These techniques influenced the melodic, rhythmic and tempo relations in the music. Still:
«My essential concern, whether you can analyze it or not, is emotional; there’s an impact that I try to achieve by these means.» (Conlon Nancarrow)
In the current project, some of these studies are orchestrated for Pipe Organ, Disklavier and electronics by Øyvind Brandtsegg. The work with the Nancarrow Studies also instigated further exploration of improvisation with these mechanic instruments in combination with improvisation software written by Brandtsegg.
As each Pipe Organ is unique, the orchestration is necessarily also unique for each instrument. Two concerts of this material (in Stavanger Concert Hall and Nidaros Cathedral) show how differently the music is shaped to match the possibilities of these two instruments and venues. Nancarrow’s music requires a quite extraordinary degree of articulation due to the rhythmic passages and high tempi. Sometimes an individual adjustment of each single note would be required, due to slight differences in timing between organ pipes. These differences stem in part from the acoustic construction, but even more it is due to the different positions of pipes in the room. The speed of sound is rather slow, and a spatial difference of 10 meters between pipes (which is not uncommon) can result in a time difference of 30 milliseconds. Compensating for such time differences has been crucial for precise rhythmic articulation and synchronization between voices.
Algorithms and automation are ubiquitous in our modern society, and Nancarrow’s compositions allow an interesting perspective on automation and mechanization within an expressive aesthetic context. It also sheds light on the necessity of manual labor of implementation and adaption to make the algorithms matter for human communication.
Famous quotes on Nancarrow:
«The stuff is fantastic… You’ve got to hear it. It’ll kill you.» (Frank Zappa)
«Conlon’s music has such an outrageous, original character that it is literally shocking. It confronts you.» (John Cage)
– Your
concentration’s slipping because it’s been too long since the last time you
ate. All that counts now is to secure your dinner, so you pull yourself
together and focus on the only task at hand: catching an elusive trout from a
cold Norwegian mountain lake. Quitting is not an option, or you won’t eat that
evening – plain and simple.
– You’ve
been at it for hours, yet you haven’t quite nailed the last section of
the prelude. The mind drifts, your wrists ache, and the coffee machine is just
down the hall, so you get up and wander off. For thirty-five guilt-ridden
minutes or so, you’re a quitter (even though you’ll be back in the practice
room soon enough).
I go
mountain trekking for weeks on end, not because I think fishing increases
my musical stamina, but because I feel the value of being in nature right down
to my bones – and then some kind of transference occurs. I need that
kind of reminder from time to time, where I live far away from music
performance for a short time. I can greatly admire fantastic musicians who
don’t need that kind of valve, but in certain ways I know I’m different –
nothing to do with right or wrong – and
we always need to remember that individual personalities as well as traditions
of behavior shape how we relate to work, art and life.
If you
catch a fish, you reach something palpable and defined. Mission for the
afternoon accomplished. If you reach for a good musical result, the culmination
is invisible, abstract, and it can move around from one day to the next. You
need to secure a level of execution that expresses a stabilized idea inside the
abstraction of music, but you can’t define it too tightly – or else other
people will be forced into your idea of a musical piece, and not be
allowed to contribute with their own imagination. In order to reach a state of
performance like that, you need identification points along the way – ‘there! I
think I found something!’ – and hold on to those identification points as you
progress onwards. You find them by engaging the challenge, by using your full
range of instinct to find workarounds, and – not least- trusting your stamina.
And that´s
what trout fishing has to do with maintaining the Arctic Guitar trio as an
unchanged ensemble since the early 1990s. No matter how long we’ve been playing
together, we’re still three individual people, and each member has his own
perception of when identification points in the process will emerge. That’s not
a problem, in part because we’ve dedicated our career to playing commissioned works
by living composers, whose ideas and vision will always be the overarching
premise of our work. So you adapt, you listen, you merge with the others, and
you keep a common goal in sight. You also remain humble to the possibility that
someone else’s will can be a positive influence on you. All of this connects
you to the world.
Because we
live in different places, we’re always hungry for growth when we meet. We don’t
get tired of each other’s company and we don’t fall easily into conflict zones.
Because the idea for us to play together came from someone else – Nordland
Music Festival suggested we perform a piece by Norwegian composer Bodvar D. Moe
– we didn’t have a mission statement from the outset. There was some agreement
about what not to do, however; the idea of becoming a crossover ‘pops’
project for classical guitarists, with a repertoire of show tunes and classical
‘hits’, for example, gave all three of us the creeps. We agreed we had
something quite specific to build on here, and a general outline for our
mandate emerged: To expand the repertoire for guitar trios, to commission new
music, and to stay within our field, because that’s what we do best – our
upcoming album reflects these dogmas clearly. However, we didn’t want to commit
ourselves to exclusively performing contemporary music, because we do like to
connect with an audience on common ground every now and then. This explains the
transcriptions we include in our repertoire: ‘Kjempeviseslåtten’ (Ballad of
Revolt) by Harald Sæverud, all four ‘Norwegian Dances’ by Grieg, and several of
the latter’s ‘Lyric Pieces’. We get asked what the difference is between this
and playing guitar editions of ‘classical hits’ such as Vivaldi, and the answer
lies within our interest in historical contexts surrounding the music. Being
aware of societies, dances, technologies and cultural codes throughout history
always helps unpack the music, while it’s not the same as academic
observation and analysis. The famous Norwegian composers mentioned above got
their primary source material from the Hardanger fiddle and other Scandinavian
folk art. Our trio needs to find out whether or not we can actually contribute
something to the music, since it’s quite familiar to a lot of audiences around
the world. One clear example, which is also interesting from a purely artistic
perspective, is our two recordings of ‘Kjempeviseslåtten’.
We started
out from the observation that although this is a very famous piano piece,
Sæverud himself also created an orchestra version, which tells us that he
didn’t regard anything as sacred or locked down; his music could function in
several settings. Also, one needs to remember that his disgust and despair at
the Nazi occupation of Norway was behind the whole character of the piece – I
believe he is quoted somewhere as saying he “spat out a rhythm” when he
saw German barracks from the pier
in Lærdal, western Norway (the dedication reads ‘To the fighters on the
home front, big and small’). This connects with our wish to contribute something
new: Though the piano can produce a lot of thunder, the guitar reaches its
‘breaking point’ a lot sooner, and if we apply controlled pressure on our
instruments we can perhaps express Sæverud’s patriotic desperation even better
than the piano – with no offense intended towards the pianists of the world! We
actually ended up recording it twice, because we weren’t happy with the first
attempt, where we stopped the ascending dynamic curve in the middle of the most
dramatic passage, and started over again from a quieter place, in order to
preserve performative-technical headroom. With the benefit of hindsight, I
think we all knew deep down this wasn’t really working, but we let it go. On
the second version, we let the desperation be the premise for our whole
interpretation instead, and investigated how much our strings, nails, wood
structures and microphones could withstand. Sæverud’s dynamic directions
towards the end of the score tells you all you need to know: molto frenetico
con tutta forza.
On our upcoming record, we include a specially commissioned suite by another Norwegian composer, Sigmund Groven, whose music is also inspired by Norwegian folk art, but comes out with a milder musical temperament. I think the essential quality of his music is to be found precisely in this lack of high drama, something that actually became a slight challenge for our trio. Sometimes you need time through the work process in order to just let the music be what it is, and Groven’s music works best when you acknowledge the greatness in small things, so to speak. Then you go back and realize it’s the same thing with Sæverud; his piece works in a violent, sweaty performance because that’s what his music is – quite naturally, whereas Groven’s melodies breathe better if you just apply an everyday lilt to it. Any kind of music works best best if you just let it lead you along as you perform it. Improvising musicians talk about this all the time: ‘The improvisation just led me to hearing something I ought to play, and then I played it’.
Arctic Guitar Trio: Trond Davidsen, Jarl Strømdal, Arne Brattland.
Eirik Hegdal’s piece for us was conceived completely without our involvement, which is our usual policy anyway. The composer’s creativity and ideas should be uninterrupted by us, though we may suggest some minor adjustments in terms of exactly where “the stream flows” here and there. We were involved in shaping a tentative title, leading to him naming it “Ice and Echo”, which reflects the theme of the Arctic in our work. Eirik primarily plays reed instruments, so we inevitably found ourselves discussing the idiomatics of our chosen instrument: sometimes a composer’s limited knowledge of, say, a fretboard on a guitar can be a good thing and lead to new approaches – if you want something to express conflict, resistance, or other energies that butt heads, it can be a bonus to have something written in a manner that’s slightly less technically accessible. But sometimes you come across passages that simply aren’t playable, and that’s when you need to broaden your field of vision: Take the proverbial elevator all the way down, look outwards and try to establish the overarching idea from the composer; what’s underpinning this? Then you make your changes according to what serves the basic idea best. This is not the same as an academic approach, this is about maintaining your performer’s identity while looking around for contexts of different kinds. The very second you try to apply a comprehensive and objective model of understanding and explaining of art, as a performer, is when we all run into insurmountable problems. When I teach, I use models of explanation a lot in the technical realm – understanding anatomy and so forth – but only to facilitate the transition into the area of aesthetics as soon as possible. In the program notes for “Ice and Echo”, Eirik himself defines his musical ideas in a clear and musician-ly fashion: the dissonance between whole-tone intervals, phrases that are repeated quickly and unevenly, and so forth.
Arctic Guitar Trio: Trond Davidsen, Jarl Strømdal, Arne Brattland.
We wouldn’t
be able to understand Early music the way we do today if it hadn’t been for the
performers, the actual doers, who were willing to ‘take the elevator all
the way down’ and look outwards. They had copies of old instruments made, they
studied eyewitness accounts as well as scores, and they experimented. Through
their practical-aesthetical work processes, they internalized and agreed upon outer
boundaries for their way of performing. The music works organically inside
these boundaries, and something feels strange if you step outside them. You
develop an intuition for these outer boundaries, and for the endless
possibilities of experimentation if you stay inside them. A defined example:
When is the music no longer possible to dance to?
I’ve played solo works by Bertil Palmar-Johansen before, but this is the first time our trio has commissioned anything by him. We suggested quite a few changes across several meetings/rehearsals, and the result speaks for the value of actually trying out ideas with an ensemble to eke out what works and what doesn’t. One really cool experience when you work with someone this good is that you can get to a point in the music that really, really works, and then – oops! – it’s over. What you do then is to ask very carefully: “Can you write more of that little thing there, please?”. In some cases, the composer will indulge you, other times they’ll decline and say that what is there already is enough. In these cases, the composer always has the last word (within reason).
Arctic Guitar Trio: Trond Davidsen, Jarl Strømdal, Arne Brattland.
The chasm
between performer and composer hasn’t always been totally clear-cut. At NTNU,
we’ll be introducing a requirement for our classically-oriented instrumental
students to perform a work of their own as part of their bachelor-degree
recitals. But the Arctic Guitar Trio definitely belongs in a tradition of
ensembles that commission and interpret original music. In our own small way
we’re attempting to bridge the gap that opened up between these two groups in
the eighteenth and nineteenth century: symphonies got bigger, so one had to
specialize in order to get to the finish line (incidentally, our local symphony
orchestra will be performing Mahler’s 6th a few days from now, one
of the pinnacle works from this era). The technical challenges from the
composers also caused virtuoso specialists, look at Tchaikovsky’s piano
concerts, for example.
In a
certain sense, you can understand our guitar trio’s longevity in the light of
all the things we’ve discussed here: Three is more than one – you remain humble
to the fact that other people’s knowledges, instincts and ideas can work better
than you own. I try to let it inspire me as a teacher every day; let guitarists
live inside the productivity of ensemble playing and the social-musical
alertness it brings. You’ll remain open to ditching your own preconceptions and
adopting someone else’s vantage point – and then make it your own: “This isn’t
how I would approach it at all, but wow, it’s working”.
It’s just
like catching trout. You have to think the same way it does if you want to
catch it.
Våren 2019 var jeg så heldig at jeg fikk jobbe med nyskrevet musikk og sammen med TrondheimSolistene har jeg spilt inn et album med blant annet to nyskrevne verk: Vegen og Hippocampus variasjonene. Disse verkene er skrevet spesielt for meg, av henholdsvis Henning Sommerro og Bertil Palmar Johansen. Vegen er et variasjonsverk for solo klaver over sangen «E Slåttåtæja», mens klaverkonserten Hippocampus-variasjonene er et verk basert på Palmar Johansens samarbeid med nobelprisvinner May-Britt Moser. I tillegg inneholder innspillingen Sommeros klaverkonsert Triquarta og klaversuiten I en blå sirkel av Palmar Johansen. Albumet er innspilt i Øra studio våren 2019 med Øyvind Gimse som produsent.
Les omtaler av platen: Textura (Canada) her, klassisk blogspot her, og kulturfestivalmagasinet KUFEMA her.
Vegen, pianovariasjoner over sangen «E slåttatæja» (Sommerro) Tema / Du går så bratt / Fint bli fare frå fota din / Vi ska møtast/Stronk og strakjin / Nakjin / Innåt elvefara / Kloa e kvesst / På kjerkegara / Høytørk
Danse i måneskinn (Palmar Johansen)
I en blå sirkel (Palmar Johansen)
Noe om å finne veien (Palmar Johansen)
Rolig sjø i dag (Palmar Johansen)
Hippocampus variations, concerto for piano and string orchestra (Palmar Johansen)
Triquarta, concertino for piano and string orchestra (Sommerro)
Drama & Flirt
Romance
Toccata
Mona Spigseth
Etter studier hos professor Einar Henning Smebye i Oslo og en oppsiktsvekkende debut i 1991 ble Mona Spigseth ansatt som klaverlærer og akkompagnatør ved NTNU Institutt for musikk. Hun har siden vært svært aktiv i norsk musikkliv både som solist og kammermusiker, og er en ofte benyttet akkompagnatør for landets fremste utøvere. Hun har gjentatte ganger opptrådt ved Olavsfestdagene i Trondheim, ved festspillene i Nord-Norge, vært akkompagnatør ved Dronning Sonja Internasjonale Musikkonkurranse, og også vært solist med symfoniorkestrene i Bergen, Stavanger, Trondheim og med Trondheimsolistene.
Mona er glødende opptatt av talentutvikling, og har de senere år vært mentor og akkompagnatør til flere av våre fremste unge lovende talenter, og hjulpet de frem mot et internasjonalt nivå. Mona har deltatt ved flere innspillinger tidligere. Dette er Mona første soloalbum.
Since studying in Norway with Professor Einar Henning Smebye, and her noticeable debut in 1991, Mona Spigseth has been a piano teacher and an accompanist by the NTNU Department of Music. As a soloist as well as a chamber musician, she has been an active part of the Norwegian music scene and is a popular accompanist amongst the country’s foremost musicians. She has frequently performed at Olavsfestdagene in Trondheim and Festspillene in North Norway, as well having been an accompanist by Queen Sonja International Music Competition), and she has performed as soloist with orchestras in Bergen, Stavanger, Trondheim, and alongside Trondheimsolistene.
Mona has a passion for developing talent and has in recent years acted as Mentor and accompanist for several of our most promising young talents, assisting them towards an international level of performance and understanding. Mona has participated in multiple recordings previously. This is Mona’s first solo album.
Henning Sommerro
«Vegen» (2018) er et variasjonsverk over sangen «E slåttatæja». Mona Spigseth lanserte ideen om å lage et variasjonverk over melodien Sommerro laget i 1976 til et høstdikt av Hans Hyldbakk. (1898-2001) Henning Sommerro har laget 30 melodier til Hyldbakk sine dikt, men selv om de begge er fra Surnadal på Nordmøre og kjente hverandre godt, samarbeidet de ikke. Diktene Sommerro tonesatte hentet han fra ulike diktsamlinger Hyldbakk hadde gitt ut. Variasjonene er nært knytt opp til Hyldbakk sitt dikt ved at navnene på de ulike satsene er sitat hentet fra diktet.
«The Road» (2018) is a set of variations over the song «E Slåttatæja». Mona Spigseth came up with the idea to write variations over the melody that Henning Sommerro made in 1976 for an autumn poem written by Hans Hyldbakk (1898-2001). Sommerro has composed melodies for 30 of Hyldbakk’s poems, but they never collaborated on a work together despite the fact that they both come from Surnadal in Nordmøre and knew each other well. The poems that Sommerro set to music were taken from various collections of poems published by Hyldbakk. The variations are directly associated with the poem by the use of quotes from the poem used as titles for each movement.
«Vegen» – «The Road» Tema – Theme / Du går så bratt – You walk so proudly / Fint bli fare frå fotå din – Beautiful are your footsteps / Vi ska møtast – We shall meet / Stronk å strakjin – A most upstanding person of consequence / Nakjin – Naked / Innåt elvafara By the riverbank / Kloa e kvesst – Waiting with sharpened claws / På kjerkegara – At the cemetery / Høytørk – Drying the hay
«Triquarta» (2002) av Henning Sommerro er en concertino for klaver og orkester i tre satser. Verket kan beskrives som en liten reise i komponistens hode. Det finnes tre utgaver av verket. En med strykere som på denne innspillingen, en med symfoniorkester og en med blåsekvinett. «Drama and Flirt» Sats 1 er en fri, lekende og flørtende sats med innslag av jazzliknende tilløp og en Charlie Chaplin som lurer i kulissene. Alt samles i en cadenza for deretter å ende optimistisk i en finale. «Romance» I sats 2 presenterer klaveret satsens tema so er bygd på den første frasen av en romantisk melodi fra Georgia. Satsens fokus er det enkle motivet, men mot slutten høres ekko fra åpningen av 1. sats. «Toccata» Sats 3 er en Toccata bygd på en folkemelodi fra komponistens fødested, Surnadal: “Klava-konas marsj 3. dag i bryllaupet.” Satsen er en tilbakevending til røttene, men mot slutten dukker nok en gang det kromatiske åpningsmotivet fra 1. sats opp igjen som om det vil minne oss om at reisen ikke tar slutt.
Henning Sommerro’s «Triquarta» (2002) is a concertino in three movements for piano and orchestra. The work can be described as a short journey inside the composer’s head. Sommerro has made three versions of the work. One with strings, as in this recording, one with symphony orchestra and one with wind quintet. «Drama and Flirt» The first movement is a free, playful and flirty movement with jazzy features and Charlie Chaplain lurking in the background. All the material is gathered in a cadenza before ending optimistically in a finale. «Romance» In the second movement, the piano presents a theme built on the first phrase of a romantic melody from Georgia. This simple motive is the main focus of the movement but towards the end we hear an echo from the opening of the first movement. «Toccata» The third movement is a Toccata built over a melody from the composer’s birth place, Surnadal; «March of the Serving Wife on the third day of the Wedding» . The movement draws from the composer’s roots for inspiration, but towards the end we again hear the chromatic opening motive from the first movement, as if to remind us that the journey does not end.
Bertil Palmar Johansen
«Danse i måneskinn» Nede ved stranden, – inne i et Munch-bilde. «Livets Dans» «I en blå sirkel» Noe om å sitte ute en kveld – når høst blir til vinter. Den aller fineste timen i året. Mørkeblått nordisk lys går inn i blåtoner. «Noe om å finne veien» – er signalene til to gridceller som sender informasjon seg imellom og til andre celler rundt seg – dypt inne i hjernen. Det er en underlig vei å gå langs. Jeg har satt en gridcelle på hver av pianistens to hender og latt de spille i vei. Det er to spretne celler, så høyre og venstre hånd fyker opp og ned på klaviaturet…men ja, de finner veien – helt ut til siste takt…både cellene, hendene og pianisten. «Rolig sjø i dag» er noe om å bare sitte, en fin dag, å se utover havet, la tankene vandre i langsomme bølger. – en båt som driver, og du driver rolig med.
Konsert for piano og strykeorkester – Hippocampus Variations Fra elektriske impulser, sendt fra en hjernecelle til en annen – over til musikk, sendt fra et menneske til et annet. I forbindelse med at May-Britt Moser i 2014 ble tildelt Nobelprisen i fysiologi/medisin komponerte jeg Khroma, stykke ble urfremført under feiringen. Dette ble starten på et langvarig art/science samarbeid mellom henne, Trondheimsolistene og meg. Det ble spikes, hippocampus, gridceller, fartsceller – sprakende elektriske signal fra dypet av våre hjerner. Khroma i Trondheim (Nobelprisfeiring), så My Running Rat i Chicago, Lost Memory på Cuba (og etter hvert mange andre steder), Into Whiteness på Starmus Festival (2018) – og ja, veien går fortsatt videre. Gridceller, kantceller og fartsceller kravlet over notelinjene og hvert et spike (elektrisk impuls fra cellen) er inspirerende og fulle av rytmer og musikk – det er en fryd. Jeg brukte uker, måneder og til sammen år for å transkriberte disse hemmelige signalene. Spike for spike over til noter, til rytmer og melodier – som så blir byggeklosser inn i musikken. Et art/science prosjekt på fremmede stier. Så ringer Mona Spigseth og vil ha en pianokonsert – riktig nok etter at hun hadde urfremført pianostykket «Noe om å finne veien» som er en «samtale» mellom to gridceller. Forskning og kunst, – et spennende felt å gå inn i – inspirerende for alle parter og en fin utfordring til å tenke nytt, høre nytt og skape nytt. I musikken jeg har komponert til May-Britt sine art/science forelesninger har jeg forsøkt å være tro mot det materialet jeg har fått fra laben deres. Fartscellenes fantastiske rytmikk når de «suser» fremover er eksakt transkribert – bare roet ned noen hakk – altså tatt ned i tempo, så det kan spilles på instrumenter og oppfattes av øret. Men i Hippocampus Variations har jeg lurt meg unna May-Britts våkne blikk og lekt litt rundt på egenhånd. Jeg har brukt noe av det transkriberte overskuddsmaterialet (og det er det stabler av noteark med) og arbeidet det inn i en annen musikalsk setting. Med solist/orkesterformen som utgangspunkt har stoffet fått en annen klang – en annen retning. Det har blitt en annerledes fortelling, et annerledes landskap, men fortalt i det samme språket – med de samme byggeklossene – de samme elektriske impulsene. Musikken er tilegnet May-Britt Moser og Mona Spigseth. En stor takk for masse inspirasjon, arbeidsglede og tålmodighet. – Bertil Palmar Johansen
«Dancing in the moonlight» Down by the water, innside a picture by Edvard Munch. «The Dance of Life” «In a Blue Circle» There is something about sitting outside in the evening, when autumn turns into winter. The best time of the year. The dark colors in the nordic sky in various tones of blue. «Something about finding your way» is the signals from two grid cells that send information between each other and to surrounding cells, deep inside the brain. It is a mysterious road to follow. I have put a grid cell on each of the pianists two hands and let them play away. They are two very active cells, so the right and left hands fly up and down the keyboard … but they find their way – right up to the last bar … all of them – the cells, the hands and the pianist. «Calm Sea Today» is about just sitting, on a beautiful day, looking out over the sea and let-ting your mind wander in slow waves of thought – in a drifting boat, with you drifting quietly with it.
Concerto for Piano and String orchestra – Hippocampus Variations From electric impulses that are sent from one brain cell to another – over to music, which is sent from one person to another. I composed «Khroma» when May-Britt Moser and Edvard Moser were awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology/Medicine in 2014. The work was premiered during the celebrations. This marked the beginning of a long art/science collaboration between May-Britt, the Trondheim Soloists and myself. Suddenly I was working with spikes, hippocampus, grid cells, speed cells – crackling electrical signals from the depths of our brains. We performed «Khroma» in Trondheim, then «My Running Rat» in Chicago, «Lost Memory» in Cuba (and several more places), «Into Whiteness» at Starmus festival in 2018 – and the list keeps growing. Grid cells, edge cells and speed cells crawl all over the manuscript paper and each spike (electrical impulse from a cell) is inspiring. Together they are full of rhythm and music and are a joy to listen to. I have used weeks, months and now years to transcribe these secret signals. Spike for spike are written as notes, rhythms and melodies, which then become building blocks for the music. An art/science project following new and hitherto unknown paths.
Then I got a phone call from Mona Spigseth who asked for a piano concerto – after having premiered my piano piece «Something about finding your way» which is a «conversation» between two grid cells. Science and art are an exciting combination to explore, inspiring for all involved, and it challenges us to think and listen in new ways. In the music I have composed for May-Britt’s art/science lectures, I have tried to remain true to the material I have been given from their lab. The speed cells’ amazing rhythms when they speed forward are exactly transcribed – just calmed down slightly – reduced in tempo so that they can be played by instruments and heard by the ear. But in «Hippocampus Variations» I have sneaked away from May-Britt’s vigilant eye, and played around independently. I have used some of the surplus transcribed material (of which there are piles!) and worked it into a different musical setting. With the instrumentation of a soloist and orchestra as the starting point, the material has found a different sound, been taken in a different direction. It tells a different story, in a different landscape, but uses the same language – made up of the same building blocks, the same electrical impulses. The music is dedicated to May-Britt Moser and Mona Spigseth. A big thank you for lots of inspiration, a rewarding project and plenty of patience. – Bertil Palmar Johansen
Associate professor Eldbjørg Raknes has developed several educational concepts for her alma mater NTNU over many years, and she spends a considerable amount of her own time as an internationally present, and prominent, voice at the vanguard of improvised music that emanates from Norway. During 2018-19 she developed a concert for Jazzfest in Trondheim, and presented it to the public on the festival’s first day in early May, 2019. Her longstanding collaboration with sound designer/engineer Tor Breivik took a new step in this project, both of them seated in the middle of an audience that surrounded them full circle, many of whom were slumped in deckchairs. The sound moved in 360 degrees around the room. Lighting designer Ingrid Skanke Høsøien’s sparse and thoughtful setup, with a lot of darkness, gave the audience a chance to conjure up mental images according to their own impulses. Shortly after the concert Eldbjørg made the decision to release the project as a live album, on the record label she’s been running for years. – Andreas Aase, Trondheim 2019
Eldbjørg Raknes 2019: Bumblebee
«This project blends my own songs and soundscapes with a selection of environmental sounds that I recorded from my hammock in my little urban garden space – birds, rain, helicopters. I loaded them into my sampler to make them a part of my setup. I also gave the samples to sound engineer Tor, for him to insert them in the show where and if he wanted to. I love spending time outdoors and get my senses in touch with nature and the weather. Recording sounds outside and then listening back on headphones opens up spaces of association, it gives me musical ideas, images, air for words, perspective, textures.”
Eldbjørg Raknes 2019: Bumblebee
“I find it important to enable freedom in the performance. I try to acknowledge what is created there and then, to follow up what is actually going on, and to mold the songs and the soundscapes as I go. Melodies, tempi, harmony, structure, etc. – I view them all as starting points, and they can all be changed in the moment. I challenge myself to trust that the music will shape its own, unique («best») whole.”
Eldbjørg Raknes 2019: Bumblebee
“The surround sound setup and the audience surrounding us (in deck chairs!) provides a certain intensity. You always interact with the specific room you play in, as well as the people who are present. I’ve been focusing on aspects of sound, energy, setting, and communication for a long time. It’s all an important part of the work palette.”
