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| Nils Petter Molvaer playing in front of a painting by Ørnulf Opdahl. Photo credit Thea Gunnes / Royal Norwegian Embassy |
This is a tale of two receptions, both held on the same evening in the Kings Cross culture quarter. The composer-improviser was to the fore at one, and missed out this year at the other. Sebastian writes:
KINGS PLACE. The paintings of Ørnulf Opdahl have been hung this week at Kings Place, where LondonJazz is based, and they are giving the building a definite buzz. Last night was the official opening of the exhibition, in the presence of the Queen of Norway.
Nils Petter Molvaer, who is artist-in-residence for the Scene Norway 2 weekend beginning tonight Friday 15th, curated by Fiona Talkington (here’s our podcast about the whole weekend) stepped forward, and played, creating sounds which went completely with the landscape which Opdahl paints and is inspired by.
It’s not surprising that Nils Petter Molvaer has strong empathy with the work: he and the artist live in houses within sight of each other, and know that landscape well.
PAUL HAMLYN FOUNDATION COMPOSER AWARDS. The three award-winners of the unique and extremely generous awards this year are:
– Emily Hall – a composer of mainly vocal music and sound installations,
– Bryn Harrison – Head of composition at Huddersfield University : “largely concerned with the exploration of musical time through the use of recursive musical forms which challenge our perceptions of time and space by viewing the same material from different angles and perspectives.”
– Chris Watson – the sound artist described on his website as “one of the world’s leading recorders of wildlife and natural phenomena.”
The Paul Hamlyn Foundation have in previous years had one space for composers who are also improvisers and executants – Iain Ballamy, Evan Parker, Steve Beresford, John Butcher, Jason Yarde and Chris Batchelor – but this year all three prizes have gone to composers of non-improvised music. (Is there a better term for it?)
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