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Trine Wilsberg Lund, born in Oslo, trained with Barbro Marklund and Håkan Hagegård at the Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo and pursued further studies with Barbara Schlick at the Cologne University of Music.

Happy Days in the Art World premiered in New York in November, and the Bergen International Festival will present the world-premiere of the Nordic version.

The late romantic era saw the emergence of a Nordic lied tradition. Jean Sibelius, Wilhelm Stenhammar, Carl Nielsen and other composers gradually departed from German Wagnerian aesthetics in an attempt to find a Nordic sound, ‘clear, honest music’ without grandiose effects.

Ksenija Sidorova performs Arne Nordheim's Flashing.

Ksenija Sidorova was born in Riga in 1988, and took up the accordion at the age of eight.

Hear the Georgian Rustavi Choir perform the folk song Odaia.

Ragnhild Hemsing was born in the region of Valdres in 1988, and started playing the violin at the age of five.

Truls Mørk was initially taught by his father, and continued his studies with Frans Helmerson, Heinrich Schiff and Natalia Schakowskaya.

Read more about the composers Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Johannes Brahms.

‘The artist has a perfect right to descend to the nethermost depths and enter into the inner secrets of the soul. That right is not a duty’.

‘With a father who crowned his era with masterpieces in practically every area, the only thing to do was to use inventiveness in order to move on, and that is exactly what Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach did’, writes Christian Ihle Hadland about this evening’s programme, which presents two generations of the Bach family.

Few choral works have enthralled audiences to the same extent as Guiseppe Verdi’s
Messa di Requiem.

The presentation of medieval music today differs dramatically from its original context.

On 16 June last year, with Oslo Cathedral filled to capacity, we bade our final farewells at Arne Nordheim’s dignified funeral.

Over two years ago I surprised even myself with the idea of creating a theatre piece in Greenland and giving its premiere performance there. It happened during a guest appearance in Copenhagen.

With tradition as ballast composers break new musical ground.

Io, frammento dal Prometeo (1981) is the first of three pieces the composer Luigi Nono wrote based on the myth of Prometheus. Together with the work Das Atmende Klarsein (1983) these led to Nono’s grand opera Prometeo (1984). According to Nono himself these works are about "the choice between a life that is well thought-out and secure, and a harder, more anxious way to exist, which can be daunting but which allows room for great pleasure and an openness to new experiences."

Despite the place undeniably held by this repertoire in English musical circles in its heyday, a concert of consort music by Byrd, Gibbons, Ward and Lawes, performed on viols, may appear today to be a peripheral musical event. Not everyone has even heard of the composers, and not everyone knows what a viol is.

No one who has undertaken a close study of the man and musician Franz Liszt can avoid being struck by his split personality. He could be simple and sophisticated, naïve and cunning, miserly and generous, but through all of this his musical talent remained exceptional.

The Ålesund Chamber Choir was founded in 1980, and currently has between 20 and 30 active singers.

For centuries England has produced many outstanding composers and attracted many more from abroad. Scholl and Halperin have compiled a programme of songs composed for English audiences over a period of some two hundred years.

Just as many people talk about Nordic light, many have also asked whether there is a Nordic sound. The question may have several answers.

It is possible for a piano to make plain, transparent sounds and to bring out every single note equally clearly. However, the instrument is also capable of building up overwhelming layers of sonority, allowing the notes to flow into one another both at the moment of creation and over long spans of time. Khatia Buniatishvili has put together a programme containing examples of both, but her emphasis lies on drama and expression.

The legendary violinist Ida Haendel remains active, both as a soloist and teacher, in her 83rd year. In this gala concert, she meets several generations of Norwegian performers in a string repertoire with both Norwegian and European flavours.

Kopatchinskaja and Say want you to feel the music, not just hear it. Is that even possible? Can music convey and provoke feelings, just like that? Not if you play it the way Igor Stravinsky wanted it played. He thought music should be performed soberly, faithful to the notation, without emotions of any kind, so that it appeared clean, unsullied. Like pure thought.

Just as Johann Sebastian Bach spun several of his works around already existing themes and hymn tunes, composers of later eras enter into dialogue with Bach’s music.

DalaSinfoniettan is a Swedish ensemble, formed in 1988. Since its beginning, the orchestra has been an important part of Dalarna’s cultural development.

Beethoven’s five sonatas are pillars of cello literature.

Arve Tellefsen is possibly Norway’s most well-known and popular violinist.

All of the Greek tragedies are legal proceedings, and make use of a legal vocabulary. What is right and just? Guilt and innocence?

‘Norwegian music is to be found in the mountains, ready for the taking’, Ole Bull is reputed to have said to Halfdan Kjerulf in the autumn of 1848. He was inspired by the revolution in Paris in February of that year to promote Norwegian folk music.

The Norwegian Soloists’ Choir performs Monteverdi, Xenakis, Messiaen and von Bingen, among others, at this year’s Bergen International Festival. Learn more about the works and composers here.

Vilde Frang performs Schubert, Bartók and Strauss at Bergen International Festival 2010. Learn more about the works she performs here.

Vertavo and Christian Ihle Hadland play Bartók, Nielsen and Schumann at Bergen International Festival 2010. Learn more about the works that are performed here.

In the days around the 200th anniversary of the birth of Robert Schumann on 8 June 1810 the Bergen International Festival celebrates the occasion by performing his four symphonies and two of his solo concertos.

At this concert, titled Orfevs, an angle and a devil, the Paolo Pandolfo Ensemble performs a series of works written for viola da gamba. Learn more about the composers behind the works here.

The Faust Quartett and Dimitri Ashkenazy perform Sallinen, Mozart and Beethoven at the Bergen International Festival 2010. Learn more about the works here.

Jaap ter Linden plays J.S. Bach: Cello suite no. 1, Prelude.

Bergen International Festival 2009.

Bergen International Festival 2009

Views from Ulriken, the city song of Bergen.

Trailer

Leif Ove Andsnes and DNK perform C.P.E. Bach, Sørensen, Janácek and Mozart at Bergen International Festival 2010. Read on to learn more about the various works.

The Last Things
Written by Thomas Oberender