Photo: Anna Valeur
Oslo Sinfonietta: "The Neon Forest"
NOTE: Limited tickets left. The last tickets are sold at the door on a first-come, first-served basis. This also applies to partoutcard holders without seat reservations. (online ticket sales are closed)
If you buy a day ticket you also get access to the concert: Rudersdal Kammersolister: WORD! WORD!
Since its foundation in 1986, the Oslo Sinfonietta has been a leading figure on the Nordic contemporary music scene. Common to the orchestra's musicians is the willingness to experiment with the possibilities of musical and instrumental expression, and to move artistically beyond the limits set by institutional music life. With them they have one of Europe's leading conductors of new music, Christian Eggen, who is Oslo Sinfonietta's permanent conductor and artistic director, and a program consisting of commissions from three prominent composers: British Rebecca Saunders, Danish Simon Løffler, and Norwegian Øyvind Torvund.
Saunders' work has been described as an exploration of the sculptural and spatial aspects of sound, which comes across, literally, in works that involve architecture in the musical process. An example is Yes (2017), an 80-minute-long installation composition for the St. Eustache Cathedral in Paris.
Torvund's works are characterized by an improvisational approach, surprising juxtapositions, and eclectic references. Just listen to Wolf Studies (2006/2014), which uses field recordings of wolves, or The Exotica Album (2019), which sounds as if the easy-listening composers of the 50s were suddenly inspired by Stockhausen. Torvund has a deep fascination for the friction that arises in the meeting between the organic and the mechanical, nature and civilization. Quoting Iggy Pop, he has said: "The neon forest is my home".
Torvund shares his interest in the meeting between nature and culture with Løffler, who has researched the possibilities of developing new instrumental practices based on bodily mechanisms and the body's inherent animality. His ongoing PhD project is aptly titled Becoming Animal. At the same time, he is behind works such as H (2014), which centers the machinic and mechanical as that which controls the music. Löffler has been called one of the most significant tone artists of his generation.
Program
Rebecca Saunders: Skull (Commissioned by Ensemble Modern, Oslo Sinfonietta, Ensemble Contrechamps, Festival Acht Brücken | Musik für Köln & La Biennale di Venezia) *
Øyvind Torvund: New Piece **
Simon Løffler: f. o. w. l. **
Supported by:
* Supported by Norsk Kulturfond
** Supported by Det norske komponistfond
Travel support from Music Norway
Biographies
Oslo Sinfonietta
Rebecca Saunders
Øyvind Torvund
Simon Løffler
Christian Eggen