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World premiere at Borealis – Jo David Meyer Lysne

Looking deep in to the fragile, intimate world of string instruments, composer and instrument builder Jo David Meyer Lysne augments the violin and double bass with his home–made mechanical instruments to create a new layer of listening intensity in his new work NiTi. In one of two world premieres for Borealis 2023, we have worked intensively with Jo David as he tries to extend our sound world with complementary mechanical objects. Joining us on stage, adding a complementary musical layer, will be mechanical ropes, swinging metal and instruments inspired by 20th century Italian music–machines. Rather than distracting from the acoustic music, these fragile machines comes from Jo David’s deep love of the overtone rich nuanced music that comes from ancient wood and string instruments. The title of the piece comes from Nitinol, a metal alloy of nickel and titanium, used in some of the new mechanical instruments in this piece. Also known as “memory metal”, the Nitinol can shift shape when heated, and then return to its previous form when cooled. These new instruments matched with our acoustic sound creates a room for listening where the lines between the mechanical and organic are blurred. Commission supported by Arts Council Norway

Project with Juniorensemblet at Barratt Due!

This autumn we have some really exciting projects going on! One of them is a collaboration with Juniorensemblet at Barratt Due musikkinstitutt. They are an orchestra consisting of around 40 young string players, all of them truly dedicated to playing music. They are really curious and listening human beings and have a fantasy we admire! ✨🔥✨

We’re lucky to have three weekends with them and it all ends in a concert 5th of December. We will work with improvising, composing and guiding them to find their own creative voice. They made some amazing music the first weekend, so we are really looking forward to the rest of the project! 😍

Thank you so much to Kulturrådet for supporting this project. And thanks to the always inspiring Sigyn Fossnes for taking the initiative!

How Forests Think – release 16th of October 2020

“The sensation of placeness can come from a feeling of clarity as well as from a sense of mystery, from restraint or experiential abundance, regularity or spontaneity. A place has boundaries, size and scale, but it can be immense, such as a continent or country, large, as a city or an urban square or boulevard, small, as one’s home or individual room, or intimate, as one’s favorite seat in a café”.
– Understanding Architecture, Robert McCarter, Juhani Pallasmaa

Vilde&Inga – How Forests Think (SOFA584) is the second album of this extraordinary duo. The album explores four completely different places in the Oslo area, letting the acoustic conditions and the poetic meanings of each place become an essential part of the music making. The pieces stem from recordings in Emanuel Vigeland Mausoleum, the Newtone studio, by a lake in the forest outside of Oslo and at the harbour in the city center of Oslo. This double album is a deep and beautiful journey into a new chapter in Vilde&Inga’s search for undiscovered relations between sound and spaces in their music. SOFA MUSIC is very proud of this work and it comes highly recommended.

How Forests Think has been produced in close collaboration with the French sound artist and sound technician Benjamin Maumus, who recorded the album and actively contributed in discovering ways to incorporate and emphasize the peculiarities of each space in relation to the music.

“Whatever is true for space and time, this much is true for place: we are immersed in it and could not do without it. To be at all – to exist in any way – is to be somewhere, and to be somewhere is to be in some kind of place. Place is as requisite as the air we breathe, the ground on which we stand, the bodies we have. We are surrounded by places. We walk over and through them. We live in places, relate to others in them, die in them. Nothing we do is unplaced”.
– Edward S. Casey

Contact:
SOFA MUSIC, sofa@sofamusic.no, +47 97753049 (Martin Taxt).
sofamusic.no

Only Connect 2020 (from a safe distance)

Senter for Kollektivt Skapande was going to premiere its first composition as a group “Senter for Kollektivt Skapande #1” at Only Connect Festival of Sound 24th of April 2020 in Oslo. We have been working on this for over two years now, and were really looking forward to the concert! Due to Covid-19 the live festival has been cancelled and instead you will get an online festival!

Senter for Kollektivt Skapande will contribute with a video where you can have a look into SKS and our composing process. Check out the festival here: www.onlyconnect.com. Enjoy!

Third album coming!

In June 2019 we recorded new music together with Benjamin Maumus. Ingo Biermann also joined us, filming the process of recording and moving between four different locations/venues. Looking very much forward to show it to you autumn 2020!

Kraftbalanse by Øystein Wyller Odden at Ultima

We have been lucky to be a part of Øystein Wyller Odden’s project Kraftbalanse this spring. The project is a part of Oslobiennalen. It is a composition for Piano, Alternating Current and Orchestra, and is a musical representation of changes in the power grid. Jan Martin Smørdal has arranged it for a string ensemble. It’s been really fascinating to work with! And we got to choose the rest of the string players who will join us. Looking so much forward to play at Ultima Oslo Contemporary Music Festival 21st of September 2019 together with Tove Bagge, Julija Morgan, Ragnhild Lien, Sverre Kyvik Bauge, Torunn Johanna Blåsmo-Falnes and Miriam Bergset.

Tour in Germany!

We are going on a tour in Germany, organized by Soundtrips. We will also play with a lot of nice musicians on our tour, looking really forward to that. Check out the concerts if you are around! You can find more info here.

We end this year with a concert in Stockholm at Lupino Live. Hope to see you at one of the concerts!

SOFA Label Night at Cafe OTO in London 26/27th of March!

We’re playing at SOFA Label Night at Cafe OTO in London 27th of March! We will share the concert with Muddersten. On the 26th of March you can hear Ingar Zach solo and TILBURY / ROWE / BJØRGEENGEN. We’re looking forward both to play and listen!