My creative past

Moving to a different country away from old friends and family can make you somewhat nostalgic, so add to that when playing my music collection at random I bump into either something that has memories attached, or, as in this case, blows the memories meter. I can't not want to share and talk about it.

Many years ago now I had a music studio down-town Oslo (near Børsen, top-floor where that great Indian restaurant is) which I shared with an old musical buddy of mine and a movie production company (more on that later, I suspect). There I laid down the foundations of much which was to become my music and musical style for years to follow. It was sitting in this loft office in the murky hours of the night I first met my wife online in one of the few chat sessions I ever did back in those days, chatting with Julie who was in the Australian bush near Bowral in the Southern Highlands. Instead of continuing my musical and movie carreer, I chose to go to Australia to meet the woman I fell in love with instead. And 10 years later I'm married to her, got three kids, a house and a Volvo S70 station-wagon and live in Australia. Things certainly took a different path.

But before my married life happened, there was a few years of back and forth and the pain of separation from both Julie and my first daughter, Grace. Two years in which a lot of my frustrations and lonely nights after long working days were filled with the remnants of my old music, and in this brew I concocted a whole slew of stuff. And some of that old music I stumbled upon by random last night, and I've got three tunes I'd like to share.

I popped them into my MySpace, and they are ;

Flying Through - an alien observing life on earth. Well, probably an alien. Could be anything or anyone observing us. This tune is somewhat in the style of Klaus Schulze, and features some well-planned syntheziser counterpoints, and probably most importantly my old friend Bjørn Rummelhoff-Hansen (my old band-mate from Sundrunk) on guitar. It's dedicated to another friend of mine, Øystein Aarseth, who turned me on to old-school synth music. Oh, and if you followed that WikiPedia link, don't take the bad stuff written there as absolute truth; there was more to Øystein that could fit into his act (our shared passions were classical and old-school synth music, protagonist philosophy and port-wine, stuff rather far from the public image he put on).

Sexy DJ - Back in the days when MP3.com was a place of good music and a fantastic community, singer/songwriter Nadine Renee started a cool competition where she release the vocal tracks from her song "Sexy DJ" to the hoards of the interwebs, saying "let's see what you can make of it", and my contribution won the Rythm'n'blues category (although I think this is rather far from rythm'n'blues). She has sadly passed away during complications of child-labour a few years back, so I note her for posterity that the whole competition was as fantastic as she was good-natured and kind. This tune happens to also feature my own dad on saxophone, Milos Ocasek.

Dunish - I'm a Dune-fanatic. If Frank Herbert was a woman, I'd have a crush on her for sure. This music is like a collage of musical themes and styles, and was for me an excercise in music production as I was working on film music at the time. If you loved the movie by David Lynch, you'd hopefully enjoy this one as well.

Update: added a song ;

Bekk - What e-business consultancy company with respect for itself doesn't have a theme song? My old company in Norway, Bekk Consulting, is truly the most rockin' gig in town. This is a tune I made in the wee hours of the night for no apparent reason, featuring my dad on sax, my good friend Hanne Svenningsen on "vocals", and Bjørn Rummelhoff-Hansen again on guitar (what would I have done without you?).

Let me know what you think of my MySpace adventures of the past.

Weird coincidences

On Sunday me and the family went to Sydney to celebrate 17th of May, Norway's national day. I was looking forward to resupply myself with things I can't buy in the shop, and hopefully catch up with someone else who speaks my freaky native tongue.

We went to Circular Quay to see the parade, and then took the ferry to Manly to get to the Norwegian Seaman's Church where some more festivities would take place, some more fiddle music, a speech or two, and cakes, and waffles, and sausages, and caviar on tube, Lofoten sauce packets, salty liquorice and other assorted funnies and yummies.

At the church we lodged ourselves in an area fit for children, mommy looking after Sam while daddy stood in queue for an hour getting the goods. Getting back to them with said booty, I entered into a conversation between my wife and some other mothers about. All of these women were Aussies with some Norwegian connection, and at the centre of this discussion was a woman who was "a violinist", and a few enquires later and my brain realigning itself that, holy Mustard!, I'm talking with Myee Clohessy (and her daughter Freya), so I said I've seen her before ("yeah, right", I'm sure she thought), pointed out Salut Baroque and the fact that she played in Norwegian Baroque Orchestra with a good friend of mine, Anna Helgadottir (cellist). Then she remembered something and asked if I was a blogger, in which I said yes, and she was reminded of a posting she read of mine, bragging about a performance of her (and Melissa Farrow!!) and the Salut Baroque gang some years ago, and she had to tell Melissa about it. They both, of course, play in the Australian Brandenburger Orchestra of which I'm also a fan.

Talk about weird and wonderful. I joked that I should have gotten her autograph, but the more I think about it, of course I should have gotten it, and I'm beating myself for being stunned by the circumstances! I've seen Myee a few times and love her style (you'll notice her up on stage; she's the bendy-swayie one, in the sexiest meaning of that made-up word), so how often does a guy like me, living down in the Baroque wastelands of Kiama, get to see their idols up close like this?

Exactly, I'm an idiot. I hope only that I get to see Salut Baroque again soon, in either Sydney or Canberra. Incidentally, and the reason I was reminded to write this post, is that they are having a concert on tonight in Canberra and I'm jealous of anyone going and sad that I'm not.

Monteverdi and me and tonight

I am in total awe, almost to the point of being at a loss for words. Although, as most of you know I'm never really at a loss for words, so indeed there is something I need to say.

I love Monteverdi. But of course, you knew that, no surprises there. But I was surprised a few weeks back while reading the newspaper; Terje Kvam and the Oslo Domkor (choir of Oslo main cathedral) was going to perform Monteverdi's Marian Vespers (of 1610 fame) tonight! And of course I went; I've been waiting for this moment my whole adult life, for something as momentous as this happening up here in the cold north.

First, let me explain just how crazy this is. The Vespers is a collection of music which is regarded some of the most challenging and beautiful music, for many the defining piece of work to separate mouse from men. It's an amazing piece, it's rather out of the common practice of its time, revolution and tradition all mixed up in a magnificent duality of old and new. Monteverdi who was just starting out in writing opera (and being damn successful at it with one of the first operas "L'Arianna" he wrote for the Gonzagas and performed in 1607), but he wasn't happy with his current boss. He probably thought that writing a piece of music that shakes some booty could be a good way to attract different employer (and he even dedicated it to the pope, probably kissing some Roman butt), and so he did. In 1610 it was published, and the world became richer.

So, anyway, here Terje Kvam decides to tackle this amazing work. You would think this could go so-so, but if you read between the lines you see names such as Rolf Lislevand (superstar lutenist of Jordi Savall coop fame), impressive tenors Joshua Ellicott and Johan Linderoth (these guys *got* Monteverdi, and more or less made this concert what it was), Njål Sparbo (always lovely to hear his bass) and assorted people from Norsk Barokkorkester and of course the Oslo Domkor itself which always has one of the nicest tones around. (My best friend Magnus' mum sings in the choir, and this night was her last concert with them after 18 years in it)

Here's my poor-quality camera-phone shot of the intro ;



This was an amazing concert, on a high international level. I've heard the vespers more than any other piece of work, I've got all available recordings of it (including a few that should have been burned and forgotten ever happened!), I know the music and lyrics off by heart ... and this concert blew me away! I was sitting there crying it was so good! The tone of this choir is amazing, and the soloists were fantastic, every single one of them (and especially the tenors; amazingly good!) , the band in fantastic form with the amazing Rolf Lislevand upfront.



Now, it's not too late to see this for yourself. Tomorrow (sunday, 30th of November, 2008 at the Trefoldighetskirken next to Deichman main library down town) they're doing it again. I know Magnus is going to be there, and if I get tickets (and permission from my wallet) I'll be there again. It's the one concert I would never want to end. If you're in Oslo, like this kind of music and want a kick-ass version of a piece of music that was written to kick-ass, you know what to do. I dare you!