Can you tell us about your piece Garland (for Matthew Locke)?

My new piece for BCMG had the working title Garland for Matthew Locke, a title that turned out to cling so firmly to the music that it ended up as the title (although with the latter part in paranthesis) . This piece is my first commission from a British ensemble, and when I first started thinking about it two years ago, the music of Matthew Locke was constantly coming to my mind. I had just recently discovered his consort-music, and I was quite taken by it. So it felt as a natural consequence to let his music influence this piece. There are however many ways of working with older music in this way, and I actually think the piece has developed in other directions than I had anticipated two years ago. My original impulse was to work with the quiet, poetical atmosphere in the fantazie-beginnings of the 1st, 3rd and 5th suite in the 'consort of four parts'. This atmosphere sets the beginning in my piece, but it develops into more hard-edged nuances as my garland unfolds. I keep close to the lines in Lockes music, but I couldn't help let it take me into a world of conflict and disruption as well as the soft shadowland the piece started out in. Lockes music is most of the time present only as some faint, often undiscernable voice in the background, but I let this voice come to the front at times throughout the piece.

Why Matthew Locke - what is your relationship to English music (contemporary or early!)?

My relation to English music has been on and off, I must admit. Of course, I am familiar with the most influential of the contemporary music and the 20th classics. And in my study days I was quite influenced by Brian Ferneyhoughs aesthetics of music as collisions of instrumental energy. But my most intimate relations with british music has been with the early music of Dowland, Byrd, Locke and others. (I studied classical guitar in my teens, and remember that the first time I felt like a real musician was when I mastered some of Dowland lute-pieces on guitar.) When it comes to Locke, it feels like his consort music imposed itself on me more than I chose it for this new piece. It might sound a bit pompous, but I can't think of other ways of explaining it right now. Or maybe I could put it this way: Locke presented a temptation I couldn't resist... 

What (else) are you currently working on? What are your plans for the
rest of this year/beyond?

After finishing the Garland for Matthew Locke this spring, I will use the rest of spring and summer to write a chamberpiece (clarinet quartet) for Ensemble Intercontemporain in Paris. The piece will be premiered in the end of september, in the Cité de la Musique. And then there is music for symphony orchestra; in a couple of weeks I am going to Shanghai to start research for a piece for Shanghai symphony orchestra and two chinese folk instruments. This piece is due in the first part of 2008, so there won't be much time for relaxation the next year. And in the middle of all this, I am doing recordings for a new CD for the norwegian label Aurora with chamber and ensemble music. (Where my new piece with BCMG will be included if all goes well!) In 2008 I will also begin a new project in the cross-section between improvisation and composition, a kind of Concerto Grosso with the wonderful norwegian trio Poing and wind ensemble. The last seven years I have done several projects in collaboration with improvising musicians and I think it is a very interesting way of exploring new sounds and new ways of communicating through music!

Can you remember the first time you heard BCMG?

Well, I'm not sure if it actually was BCMG I heard, but I certainly remember the first time I heard modern music from Birmingham: It was Simon Rattles excellent TV-series on 20th century music. I remember CBSO playing, and I think maybe a couple of pieces were played by a smaller group that could have been the BCMG. But maybe memory is failing me on this one, it might have been only the CBSO. Anyway, I very vividly remember my first live-meeting with BCMG, that was in 2004 during a festival in Copenhagen. The ensemble was invited to play one of my pieces, and it was a total delight to hear one's music played with the refinement and delicacy of BCMG. The piece was played in both Copenhagen and Malmö, Sweden, and I actually had a little time to get to know the players and the ensemble a little bit. Needless to say, I'm looking forward to visiting Birmingham soon, to hear the ensemble again, and to meet the players who will premiere my music in november!