Anders Beyer is the new Director of the Bergen International Festival

- In my view, The Bergen International Festival is the most interesting festival in the North because it brings together cultural heritage, a national festival and modern experiments. For years this combination has given audiences great experiences and food for thought, says Beyer who was artistic adviser for Festival Director Per Boye Hansen from 2006 to 2008.Anders Beyer has a wide experience from working with many forms of culture, and he has played a central part in establishing many cultural platforms in Denmark as well as abroad. Since 2006, he has been the Artistic Director and General Manager of Athelas Sinfonietta Copenhagen which in later years has hosted an international festival of contemporary music – in three years the Athelas New Music festival has become the biggest festival of contemporary music in Denmark and one of the most prominent in the North. In 2009 Beyer also founded the Copenhagen Opera Festival which gained immediate recognition as an important cultural attraction in Copenhagen with more than 25,000 visitors in 2011. The head of the festival board, Åse Kleveland, says that it is with great pleasure that the Festival announces the appointment of Anders Beyer as successor of Per Boye Hansen.- The challenges that comes with this central position in Norwegian cultural life are many. Anders Beyer has a wide experience within the fields of Art and Music, he is committed and passionate, initiating collaborations and establishing networks, and he has been successful in presenting cultural events in new ways and attracting new audiences. Furthermore, he has a strong Nordic profile. This makes him ideally suited to develop the Bergen International Festival in new directions from the strong position it already holds, says Kleveland.

Popular and exclusive, global and local

Anders Beyer studied music and philosophy, but when he was in his teens he already performed as a soloist and accompanist, recording and touring with a number of rock and jazz combos and various orchestras. He is well-known as a writer and music editor for the newspaper Dagbladet Information, and he is the author of numerous books and articles on Nordic music. He was also the editor of Dansk Musik Tidsskrift (The Danish Music Review) and Nordic Sounds.

Classical music – from the early Renaissance composers to the Late Romantic masters – has been central to Anders Beyer’s professional life for decades. His knowledge of, and indeed his passion for, European musical culture has been instrumental in establishing an international network within the world of Classical music. For the Nordic Council of Ministers, Beyer has been the leader of a number of cultural projects in the Nordic countries and further abroad. He has initiated projects with music as a purveyor of peace on the Balkans in the 1990es, and he has worked with public diplomacy projects on Ground Zero in New York, among other places.In Beyer’s view, what characterizes the Bergen International Festival is the consistent high quality of events, the dialogue between the popular and the so-called ”high culture”, and the mutual exchange of inspiration between various art forms and artistic expressions.– I have undergone a long journey myself, from the world of popular music to the newest experiments of contemporary music. These experiences have given me an enormous respect for both popular culture and the so-called high culture. To me, one thing isn’t above the other. This is a basic premise in my work – I am a product of both worlds, Anders Beyer stresses.Beyer also points out that the strength of the Festival is in the fruitful tension between the local and the global. – The Festival is not just about one of those aspects. I don’t think it’s interesting that an international guest star flies in, gives a concert and leaves. I want to focus on the meeting, the meeting between first class artists and the audiences – children, young people, students, local people from Bergen.However varied Beyer’s cultural work has been, it has always been fuelled by his will to explore new ways of presenting music to audiences. The ground rule of winning over present day audiences, according to Beyer, is that you must have the ambiton of presenting the most sublime art, performed by the greatest performers. The key words are professionalism, commitment, dialogue, and challenge. Beyer has shown that collaboration across the divides of culture and genre as well as the establishing of networks and alliances between institutions working within the same area can produce great and significant results.

To engage and involve

A new management will mean the start of an exercise in strategics, beginning with the fundamental questions: What will the Festival be like? How and why?

– I am preoccupied with dialogue and the first thing I intend to do is to make myself familiar with the central partners in Bergen and listen to their dreams and visions. The Festival must have the goal of being a festival for the whole of Bergen which means that we must involve and engage the biggest possible enthusiast audiences. Everyone who works seriously within the field of Arts and Culture have the wish that even more people will discover the wonderful and fascinating world which music, theatre, dance, etc. have to offer. But there must also be room for projects which for one reason or other will not attract large audiences, says Beyer.He is also grateful for the significant financial funding which the Festival receives from both commercial businesses and private individuals. – These are important contributions to growth and quality, and I look forward to discussing new strategic collaborations which can add value for example in the form of extra resources or new collaborative partnerships.

Finding the rhythm of Bergen

Even though Beyer is Danish, he has strong bonds to Norway.

– I have often traveled in Norway, but my close affinity with the country is first of all due to the fact that I have met so many fantastic individuals, both privately and professionally, in this country, says Beyer who will be moving to Norway in March. – If you wish to work seriously with art and culture in a city, you have to work and live in that city in order to be able to communicate the moods and the specific rhythms of the place. I will strive to be open-minded and will do my utmost to live up to the high expectations which people quite rightly have to the Festival Director, says Beyer.