Christiania Mannskor, under the baton of conductor Marius Skjølaas, perform works by father and son David Monrad Johansen and Johan Kvandal. Some of the texts are traditional, from old norse texts, some are by Norwegian poets like Henrik Wergeland and Ivar Aasen.

To compose microtonal piano music, to explore the infinitesimal gaps between the white and black keys, is to embrace the necessity to rethink, retool and, of course, retune the instrument in order to expand or simply reconfigure its tonal makeup and capabilities. Such an exploration extends to other aspects too, to timbre, structure, melody, and most obviously — and radically — to harmony. The five composers on this album, Eivind Buene, Keiko Harada, Øyvind Mæland, Michelle Agnes Magalhaes and Andreas Gundersen, all take a distinct, individual approach in their exploration beyond the conventional limits of the piano.

In a world where unrest and war make constant headlines, human migration is an issue that touches peoples everywhere. On its latest release, The Silk Road, the Oslo-based wind chamber ensemble Oslo Kammerakademi presents a beautiful programme inspired by the subject of cultural migration – what happens when cultures meet, for example because of the movement of populations, trade, politics or conflict.

The quintet, with its peculiar instrumentation and its tonal and rhythmic playfulness— described by some as “successfully circusy”—is a prime example of Prokofiev as an ironist and humorist, a superb craftsman who elegantly juggles his material and produces surprisingly sonorous, tonal and rhythmic kaleidoscopes. Humour has long been a central ingredient in Jon Øivind Ness's music, but there has been a development from the anarchistic maximal to the punctuated minimal.

All four compositions of Ørenslyd are developed from an exploration of acoustic and vocal sound formation and the active participation of our listening ability in this formation. The four pieces represent different manifestations of the tonal expression of the human voice and the acoustic richness of the double bass. Ørenslyd (from “øre”, ear, and “lyd”, sound) means “the opportunity to hear something being said or to be heard yourself”.

The Women’s Choral Society of the University of Oslo (KSS) under the direction of conductor Marit Tøndel Bodsberg Weyde has established itself over the course of many years as one of the country’s leading female choirs. On this release, the choir takes a new direction in its collaboration with two of Norway’s most trendsetting jazz musicians.

Seven Disobediences
Seven Imperatives is my answer to the tradition of character pieces for piano, such as Debussy’s Préludes and Grieg’s Lyric Pieces; short, relatively simple but concise miniatures with a motto, and usually with one prevalent sentiment—like a musical short story. The title of each of the seven pieces is an imperative consisting of four letters: Seek! Push! Lean! Etc.
One of the pianists who has taken the Imperatives into his repertoire, is Kenneth Karlsson—central to the founding and artistic development of Cikada. So, when Donaueschinger Musiktage asked me to write a work for Cikada for their concert there in 2018, I seized the opportunity to explore another cornerstone of the piano literature: In a solo concerto, you see a whole orchestra dutifully following a brilliant ego that is completely dominating the stage. Beethoven’s last piano concerto was even called the Emperor Concerto, an epithet the thoroughly anti-authoritarian composer would have hated.
As I transformed Seven Imperatives (2001) into the “concert” Seven Disobediences (2018), I looked into Cikada’s beautiful collaborative social and artistic structure. When Kenneth, “The Emperor” (Italian: imperatore) gives his imperatives to his fellow musician, how do they react? Well, when he tells them to spin, they happily spin together with him, but when he says “SINK!”, they do the opposite and rise gracefully towards the sky. Towards the end, they all leave their positions and their instruments and gather around the piano’s big body to caress it and make it purr by fondly knocking on its shiny, black surface in loving disobedience.
-Rolf Wallin

The Norwegian Radio orchestra; under the baton of Chief Conductor Petr Popelka; performs Mozart's Symphonies Nos. 39 and 40.

Norwegian Saxophonist Ola Asdahl Rokkones, along with Arktisk Filharmoni under the baton of Per Kristian Skalstad, performs commissioned works by composers living in, and inspired by, the Arctic.

Mozart’s original music for organ consists of 17 one-movement “Epistle sonatas” — chamber music written between 1772 and 1780 for masses in Salzburg. The instrumentation for 14 of these is two violins and basso continuo, while the remaining three are written for more instruments. The pieces are short — this is music written to be played between the reading of texts. In 1790 Mozart was commissioned to write music for what was known as a “Flötenuhr” — a large grandfather clock containing a self-playing organ. The works are compositions of exceptionally high musical quality. Here the mature Mozart reveals his gifts as a contrapuntalist and his ability to create singable melodies and forward-looking harmonies.

It is an adventure to immerse oneself in the Norwegian treasury of song. There is so much magnificent music, and so much of it bears witness to the time in which it was written. The songs on this release — volume 1 — are all songs that were published during Sigurd Lie’s lifetime (1871-1904).

A theme that violinist Sara Övinge aimed to pursue in the project was the juxtaposition of the electronic and the organic. Philip Glass’s 2nd Piano Concerto is arranged for synthesizer and strings, a kind of updated version of Vivaldi’s string orchestra with continuo. But where previous recordings have gone for an electronic sound resembling the baroque harpsichord, Sara wanted to create a more electro-acoustic soundscape.

Works for Cello and Piano by composers Igor Stravinsky, Francis Poulenc, and Claude Debussy, performed by Norwegian artists cellist Amalie Stalheim and pianist Christian Ihle Hadland.

Kenneth Karlsson writes: Hilde Torgersen and I were invited to hold a concert in Bremen back in June of 1992. The Norwegian pianist Darlén Bakke had moved to Germany after studying at the Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo and had already established a successful career for herself there. She wanted to acquaint the German audience with the music of her homeland and decided to organize a festival called “Bremen meets Oslo”. With the exception of Antonio Bibalo’s piece, all the music from this concert was composed for us.

After seven years of violin studies during his childhood, Åsmund Feidje founded the Norwegian experimental rock band RAIN in 1967. In 1969, the group was employed by the National Theatre in Oslo to take part in the pop musical Din egen vri (Your own thing). Ever since then, Feidje has worked primarily with theatre music, both individually and in collaboration with the other members of RAIN. He was permanently employed at the theatre in 1973, playing in numerous productions over a wide range of styles, yielding him countless experiences within several musical genres. He also played with the Terje Rypdal Ensemble, and would later co-found the contemporary music ensemble Octoband.

Since the end of the 1970s he has focused more and more on composition, taking a year off in 1989/90 to study in Salzburg with the Polish contemporary composer Bogusław Schaeffer, professor of composition at the Mozarteum. He has subsequently composed chamber music for soloists and various ensembles while maintaining his work for the stage, for which he has composed music for more than 150 productions, including for all the major Norwegian theatres, for radio theatre, and for film and TV. Many of these productions in collaboration with Carl Jørgen Kiønig, his colleague from RAIN, who, from the 1980s and onwards, became one of the leading theatre directors of Norway. He has also composed music for several ballet companies at home and abroad, including for the Finnish and Icelandic national ballets. He has enjoyed a close working relationship with choreographer Sølvi Edvardsen, collaborating on the ballet Access for the Norwegian National Ballet, which premiered on the main stage at Oslo’s prestigious new opera house (The Norwegian Opera & Ballet) in 2010.

In 2002, they were commissioned by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to create the ballet Beyond Borders in New Delhi with leading Indian and Norwegian dancers, marking 50 years of aid to India. Åsmund Feidje has been represented at a number of festivals, including the ImPuls Dance Festival in Vienna, the Avignon Festival, the San Marino Festival, the Bergen International Festival and the Ibsen Festival. Feidje has received the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation’s Blå fugl (Blue Bird) prize (for artists who have given extraordinary service to radio theatre), and he also won two Edvard Prizes (named after Edvard Grieg) and awarded to Norwegian composers and writers annually.