Innovation and traditions

Soloist with the Shanghai Symfoniorkester inside the Forbidden city in Beijing? Check. Collaborating with techno-pioneer Jeff Mills? Check. 32 million views on YouTube? Check. Mari Samuelsen has done it all.The violinist from Hamar, Norway - known for her innovative approach to what classical music can be - has been praised by the music press worldwide for her ability to break down barriers and to help draw a new and younger audience towards the classical scene. On May 27, she will visit the Grieg Hall with a sextet and perform music by, among others, Bach, Glass, Pärt and Richter.

– The program I do, and the musicians I play with at this year’s festival…it’s really a dream project to me, Mari Samuelsen says in an email interview with Bergen International Festival.

– I like doing longer continuous programs; it kind of becomes a story that I want to share. I consider everything from quartets to larger chamber orchestras as “dream groups” to work with. Also, I enjoy both playing and leading, and I like the audience to be close…even though that has been a bit difficult during the recent year!

Samuelsen took violin lessons with Arve Tellefsen from the age of four. In her teens, she was a student of Stephan Barratt-Due at the Barratt Due Music Institute in Oslo, before she later finished two master's degrees at the Zürcher Hochschule der Künste in Switzerland, with the Russian professor Zakhar Bron as teacher. She has also taken master classes with, among others, Ana Chumachenco, Ivry Gitlis, Donald Weilerstein and Pamela Frank.

– Considering the travel restrictions, how have you managed to stay busy during the pandemic?

– Actually, I haven’t been active all the time…it has been a bit on and off. Last spring, I felt like being in a vacuum or a bubble. Later, however, I did a few projects, and in the autumn/winter there were some concerts. It was more quiet than usual, but most of the projects have just been postponed, so it's ok. Over the past year, I have often thought about how lucky I am having been an active musician for a while; that I’m not in the final stages of my studies, or in the starting phase of establishing myself. It must be incredibly difficult for many people, and I sympathise a lot with those who struggle both financially and mentally with their professions and lives.

– Have you learned anything from doing online concerts that you can take with you further into your career?

– I definitely think it has been important to communicate art and music online to people when you can’t experience it live. For me, there have been a few streaming productions, and it has been a great inspiration and motivation to get the chance to meet other musicians, create music together and to share it with people around the world. I may have become even more aware of putting together a program that keeps the excitement going in one way or another, and I have become very fond of concerts lasting for just over an hour without a break. Still; I think that the vast majority of musicians and audience members can’t live without live experiences in the long run!

As a musician, Mari Samuelsen has performed in all corners of the world, on stages such as Carnegie Hall in New York, the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, the Barbican Center in London, the Konzerthaus in Berlin and the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris. She has also collaborated with a number of musicians in various genres, such as Leif Ove Andsnes, Max Richter (pianist and composer), Dubfire (techno producer) and Christian Badzura (pianist and A&R vice president of the record company Deutsche Grammophon). Together with her brother, cellist Håkon Samuelsen, Mari topped the Norwegian album charts in 2015 with the album Pas de Deux; the first classical album to reach that spot in ten years.During the same period, Samuelsen also made a name for herself as the artistic director of Yellow Lounge in Oslo; a club concept originating from Berlin with the intention of breaking down the traditional norms of classical music, placing classical musicians together with DJs and visual artists in more informal settings.

– Which new artists do you listen to the most these days?

– There are so many! Everything from Girl in Red and London Grammar, to Hannah Peel and Anna Meredith. In addition, I listen a lot to Joep Beving, Josin and Hania Rani.

– Feel free to tell us a little about the collaboration with Christian Badzura…

– Christian came to a concert I did in Leipzig maybe 4, 5 years ago. I immediately felt that we spoke the same language in regards of music and style, and that we had similar ideas when it came to recording. We certainly do not always agree (haha), but in the recent years - since I signed with Deutsche Grammophon - we have worked very closely, and I feel incredibly privileged to be able to record for such a historic record label, and at the same time get to control things in the direction that I wish to go.

Supported by Vestland county council