Gisle Kverndokk

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Gisle Kverndokk (born February 3, 1967 in Trondheim , grew up in Skien ) is a Norwegian contemporary composer .

Education and career

Kverndokk studied composition with Ragnar Søderlind in his youth. After graduating from high school, Kverndokk enrolled at the Norwegian Academy of Music , from which he graduated in 1994 with a diploma. He studied with Olav Anton Thommessen, Lasse Thoresen and Alfred Janson . Kverndokk also studied at the Juilliard School in New York City with John Corigliano and David Diamond . In 1992 Kverndokk received one of the main prizes of the Juilliard Composers Competition with his orchestral work Selene . For his work Initiasjon for Fiolin og Orkester , Kverndokk received first prize in the category for composers under 30 at the International Rostrum of Composers in Paris in 1993. Kverndokk has composed two solo concertos, both premiered by the Bergen Philharmonic , a concerto for oboe and orchestra (1996) and a concerto for flute and orchestra (1998). His Peer Gynt Fantasy was composed for the violinist Arve Tellefsen and the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra for a summer concert premiere in Oslo's Holmenkollen in 2000. During the 1999-2000 concert season, Kverndokk was Composer in Residence of the Trondheim Symphony Orchestra. In February 2003 his The Crystal Cabinet for violin, piano and orchestra was premiered by the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra.

Kverndokk's first opera, The Falcon Tower , premiered in 1990 with a cast of singers and musicians from the Norwegian Academy of Music. The opera's libretto was based on Erik Fosnes Hansen's novel of the same name. Kverndokk's children 's opera, George's Magical Medicine , was commissioned by Kristiansund Opera and premiered in 1995 and was awarded the Work of the Year Prize by the Norwegian Society of Composers that same year. The opera was then performed domestically by the Norwegian National Opera and the Norwegian National Ballet, Bergen's Opera Vest and the Trondheim Symphony Orchestra, and internationally at the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival . The children's operas Max and Moritz and Supersize Girl , commissioned by the New York Opera Society, premiered in Washington DC in 2010 and 2013, respectively.

Kverndokk has written a number of musicals with the librettist and singer Øystein Wiik . Their first joint project was the musical Sofie's World , which premiered in 1998 at the Ettlingen Castle Festival . In 2001 the musical Vincent was premiered at the Ettlingen Castle Festival . In this scenic-musical portrait of the painter Vincent van Gogh , the composer demonstrated "how well-arranged he is to be able to combine solos and ensembles safely into a whole even in the [...] combination of musically disparate elements". In 2002 the musical Liaisons Dangerous , based on the novel of the same name by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos , premiered in the Pforzheim Theater . Kverndokk's and Wiik's musical Homeless , based on Hector Malot's novel, premiered in the fall of 2003 at Det Norske Teatret in Oslo. The Erfurt theater premiered the Luther musical Martin L. at the 2008 DomStufen Festival . This work was later nominated for the Nordic Council Music Prize. The opera Around the World in 80 Days was commissioned for the opening of the new Oslo Opera House and premiered in May 2010. Bokken Lassons Stumbling Success, a radio opera commissioned by NRK with libretto by Ivar Tindberg , won the Prix Italia in 2000. Their next collaboration, the opera The Fourth Clock of the Night , premiered at the Norwegian National Opera in November 2005 and in 2006 with the Edvard Prize awarded. It was revived in the new Oslo Opera House in 2012 and presented at the Savonlinna Opera Festival in Finland in August 2012 . Kverndokk's latest opera, Easter , is based on August Strindberg 's play of the same name. The libretto by Aksel-Otto Bull was commissioned by the Bergen National Opera and had its world premiere in April 2014 at Opera Sør in Kristiansand .

Kverndokk has also composed a number of church music works, including Te Deum (2010) for the Norwegian soloist choir , Mass (2007) for Nordic voices, Nidaros Mass (2010) for the Nidaros Cathedral Choir and Sommerens Maria (2011). In autumn 2015 the album Fuge der Zeit was released , which featured a mass written by Kverndokk for Nordic Voices, based on the work Missa Brevis, which was originally commissioned by Fartein Valen Dagene in 2002.

In 2005 Kverndokk made his debut as a film composer with the score produced by Fine & Mellow for the Danish film Chinaman . In later years Kverndokk also composed a number of chamber music works, including Three Pictures (2012) for Tine Thing Helseth , the string quartet La Nouvelle Athénes (2014) for the Danish string quartet and Offertorium (2015) for the Trio ClariNord. Kverndokk's most recent chamber work, Offertory for Clarinet, Cello and Piano , premiered at the Ultima Oslo Contemporary Music Festival in September 2015.

Gisle Kverndokk has worked a lot as a musician and has been the music director of several musical theater productions in Norway, Germany, the USA and Canada. In 1997 he received the Anders-Jahres-Kulturpreis for young artists and Wilhelm Hansen's legacy. In 1999 he received the Lili Boulanger Memorial Fund from Boston University .

In 2019, the musical The Name of the Rose was produced as a commission for the DomStufen Festival in Erfurt.

Selected Works

• Upon this handful of earth (2017)
• Ruth Maier (2015)
• Symfoniske Danser (2014)
• Supersize Girl (2013)
• Påske (2012)
• Nidaros Fair (2010)
• Jorden round on 80 days (2007)
• Den fjerde nattevakt (2005)
• The Crystal Cabinet (2003)
• Frendelaus (2003)
• Bokken Lasson - Sensitive Suksess (2000)
• Sofies Verden (1998)
• ... in the night before the town-crier begins to cry (1994)
• Initasjon (1993)
• Selene for orchestra (1992)
• Ho som ber god frukt (1991)
• Piano Sonata (1991)
• Falketårnet (1990)

Discography

• Nordic Voices, Fugue of Time (2015)
• Kirkens Korskole Nøtterøy, Sommerens Maria (2015)
• De Unges Orkesterforbund, Minuetto Libero (2014)
• Guro Kleven Hagen, Sara Chen, Miriam Helms Ålien, Madelene Berg, Ann Hou Sæter, Christopher Tun Andersen, Victoria Putterman, Melinda Csenki, Sonoko Miriam Shimano Welde, Nine Solos for Nine Violinists (2012)
• Peter Herresthal, Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra , Peter Kates, Catch Light (2012)
• Musical Forever 2 (2011)
• Dan Styffe, Revisited (2003)
• Steinar Hannevold, Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, Dimitri Kitajenko, Concerto for oboe and orchestra (2001)
• Kyberia, navigation (2000)
• Norwegian Radio Orchestra, Bokken Lasson - sensible suksess (2000)
• Songs from Sophie's World (1999)
• Øystein Wiik, Too Many Mornings (1991)

Web links

• List of works supplied by the National Library of Norway

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Christoph Kammertöns : Between drama and television ballet, review of the world premiere of Gisle Kverndokk's musical Vincent van Gogh , in: Opernwelt 11/01, p. 70.