VA - Åsmund Feidje: Chamber Works (2023) [Official Digital Download 24/192]

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.

Bjørg Lewis, cello
Håkon Thelin, double bass
Dan Styffe, double bass
Kenneth Ryland, double bass
Glenn Lewis Gordon, double bass
Kolbjørn Holthe, violin
Jon Wien Sønstebø, viola
Ernst Simon Glaser, cello
Marius Knudsen Flatby, double bass
Christian Krogvold Lundqvist, vibraphone
Kvindelige Studenters Sangforening
Vertavo String Quartet
Cikada Ensemble
Norwegian Radio Orchestra
Marit Tøndel Bodsberg Weyde, conductor
Christian Eggen, conductor
Bjarte Engeset, conductor

Tracklist:
01. Etüde für Violoncello solo
02. Sonnet No. 8 for Women's Choir
03. 1905 – Duel for String Quartet
04. Contrabbacchus per contrabbasso solo
05. Kort møte for Chamber Ensemble
06. Fragment for Double Bass Quartet
07. Pas de deux for Chamber Ensemble and String Orchestra


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