{"id":3236,"date":"2019-05-13T10:37:53","date_gmt":"2019-05-13T08:37:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.the-new-listener.de\/?p=3236"},"modified":"2019-05-13T10:43:28","modified_gmt":"2019-05-13T08:43:28","slug":"ricardo-odriozola-introducing-a-young-master","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.the-new-listener.de\/index.php\/2019\/05\/13\/ricardo-odriozola-introducing-a-young-master\/","title":{"rendered":"Ricardo Odriozola: Introducing a young master"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The following guest contribution was written by the Spanish-Norwegian violinist, composer and conductor Ricardo Odriozola:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I would like to introduce you to a major young composition talent from Norway. Before that, however, allow me to introduce myself. I am a violinist and sometime violist, composer and conductor. The last 31 and half years I have worked as a violin and chamber music teacher at the Grieg Academy in Bergen, Norway. I have also recorded very many CDs, mostly of contemporary (or Twentieth Century) music but also more standard repertoire, such as J.S. Bach\u2019s sonatas and partitas for solo violin or (not quite so standard, but accessible, nevertheless) violin music by Ole Bull. You can check these out here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although I have a deep respect and interest for the violinist\u2019s craft (which, as a frequent performer on that instrument, is essential) my heart has always beaten the fastest for those who create or channel music: composers, songwriters, improvisers \u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the past three and a half decades I have been exceptionally fortunate to be able to work with many remarkable composers, mostly in Norway, but also in Denmark, England and the United States. In 2017 I released a book about five of them. It is called \u201cOpus Perseverat\u201d and can be purchased through Musik Produktion Hoeflich.<\/a> The same edition has given me the opportunity (since May 2016) to publish the score and parts of a Norwegian work once a month. All of the above means that, although a great amount of work remains to be done on behalf of all the composers represented in the book and the monthly publications, there is at least a sense of momentum: some work is being done for them, and their music is gradually becoming available in beautiful editions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Getting\nstarted in the music world is very hard and even more so if one happens to be a\ncomposer. With so much music available, why should one devote one\u2019s precious\ntime and attention to listening to new music by unknown young composers?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nquestion cannot be answered with a single sentence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However,\nI can say the following: as a very self-centred young man with his head in the\nclouds I was given enormous encouragement and support by many older and wiser\npeople. When I eventually grew up sufficiently to see the world around me with\na degree of objectivity, I decided that, given the chance, I would do my best\nto provide the same level of support to those younger than me who came within\nmy sphere. Fortunately, there have been many such people in the past thirty odd\nyears.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In\nthe academic year 2016-2017 fate landed me with the privilege of tutoring an\nexceptional talent. She was then a Master student of composition at the Grieg Academy,\nand her name is Trine Franksdatter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some biographical details<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Trine\nFransdatter was born in L\u00f8renskog on September\n26th 1990. On the very same day, some twenty kilometres to the East, the great\nNorwegian composer Harald S\u00e6verud was having his last composition premiered in Oslo. Trine grew up in a\nfarm near Dr\u00f8bak (south of Oslo),\nthe place she calls home. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She is number twelve\nin a flock of fourteen siblings (seven boys and seven girls) and grew up in an\nessentially Christian family; an uncommonly harmonious one, apparently: they have\nalways, and do still get on really well among themselves. Trine started writing\nher own music very early on but it was only when she began attending the distinguished\nToneheim music Folk High School in Hamar (some 130 km. north of Oslo) that she began to compose\nseriously. Gaining access to notation software made it easier to produce\nmusical material that could be readily handed over to friends. In a family the\nsize of hers, sharing had become second nature for Trine. Being able to give\nher music to other people was, in her view, her contribution to making the\nworld a little bit better. For, Trine Franksdatter has never been attracted to\nthe „enfant terrible<\/em>“ role.\n[In our first supervising session at the Grieg Academy\n(a year before I became her composition tutor) I asked her (apologizing for the\ninherent silliness of the question): „what kind of music do you\nwrite?“. „Beautiful and melodious“, she replied. There was not a\nhint of conceit in her answer. She simply has a firm conviction that what she\nwants to deliver to the world she is in has to be edifying and beautiful.] <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eventually she felt that, in order to get a robust composer’s education in Norway (without going too far afield), she had to try to get into the Norwegian Music Academy in Oslo. She applied there for the bachelor program in 2010 but was turned down. Undeterred, she enrolled in the private Staffeldtsgate Music School for a year. It proved to be a pivotal year in her development. She was one of only four classical musicians there, and the only composer. At Staffeldtsgate she started a choir that eventually became the excellent female vocal quintet Franksdatter Vokalensemble<\/em> (earlier called Staffeldtsgate Vokalensemble<\/em>) that concentrates exclusively on singing Trine’s music. You can hear them here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2011 she\napplied again to the Norwegian\n Music Academy.\nWiser from her experience the previous year, she now delivered a bizarre\nelectronic music composition as hear audition piece. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She was\naccepted. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her experience there was mixed. There was great camaraderie and mutual respect among her composer classmates. The teaching staff was a different story. By and large, the favoured style among the latter was the so-called „avant-garde“ aesthetic, rooted in post World War 2 Darmstadt ideals and strongly coloured by the French spectral school. In other words, what in Norway is so eloquently referred to as „pling-plong“. A lot of the course work consisted of analyzing works in that style, which bored our young composer to distraction. Having never intended to rebel, she now began doing so (out of dejection, rather than from any wish to make a point) by spending a lot of time in her classes doodling or sleeping. This eventually infuriated one of the teachers, who told her she had no business being at that school and that she should quit. Shaken by this confrontation, she in fact contemplated quitting half way through her studies. However, after a summer of turmoil she returned to the academy, stronger in her purpose, and embarked on the composition of what would become her graduation piece, a substantial music theatre work called „Koydon“. It is one of her greatest achievements to date, and an excellent work on many levels. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2015 Trine\ndecided to pursue her Master degree at the Grieg\nAcademy in Bergen. Her timing was, ostensibly, not the\nmost auspicious. The Academy’s long standing and much loved composition teacher\nMorten Eide Pedersen had died suddenly the previous fall, leaving the\ndepartment in the hands of substitutes. Although these were highly qualified,\nthe stability that Pedersen had built over 18 years was proving difficult to\nmaintain. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was Trine’s\nsupervisor for the required written assignments of her study. In time she began\nshowing me some of the music she was working on. We seemed to hit it off and\nshe was happy with the feedback I was giving her. She took the unprecedented\nstep of applying for permission to have me, the academy’s violin associate professor,\nas her composition instructor for her entire second year. [The previous year,\nafter the untimely passing of M.E. Pedersen, I had helped another very gifted\ncomposer for a few months. but that is another, very pleasant story]. Her wish\nwas granted and, for me, this resulted in one of the happiest years I have had\nat work. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trine is a\nhard, conscientious worker. She sets herself very ambitious goals and delivers\non every level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For her Master study she decided to create another big piece of music theatre. It was going to be about God (I did mention she is ambitious!). Well … that is the quick way to describe it. She called it „The mirror: a music theatre about the First Cause“. I was privileged to witness the birth of this work, from its first sketches and extra musical ideas through to its completion. I got to conduct its premiere at two performances given in Bergen in early May 2017. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the past\nyear and a half Trine Franksdatter has been working at a number of part-time\nteaching jobs and has recently signed a contract with the Norwegian music\npublishing house Cantando.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the\nvenerable age of 28, this is the extent of her outer biography so far. For her\ninner biography I need to refer to her music.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trine Franksdatter’s music: reinventing the wheel<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Not (I hasten\nto claim) a negative notion at all! Quite the contrary: all great artists (as\nwell as spiritual leaders) have, through the ages, made us aware of what we,\ndeep inside, already knew, but always in delightfully new and original ways\nthat stem from their innermost being. Trine Franksdatter’s music does not set\nout to teach us anything. It does not purport to have found the Holy Grail. It\nneither is narcissistic nor does it intend to proselytize. It is simply a\nsuperbly crafted representation of her view of the world. Even when she deals\nwith serious matters, she can seldom avoid laughing at herself through the\nmusic she writes. And hers is a music that, more than merely occasionally, is\ntouched by the divine spark. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A glance into Trine’s website<\/a> reveals 85 titles to her credit (with two or three omissions). They are in varied formats, but vocal music (songs and a capella works) constitute a high percentage of her production. As you will see, there is also a small number of chamber works, some music for film, electronic pieces, music for solo piano and some occasional music, such as music for weddings that often embraces folk and pop styles with remarkable abandon. Not to forget two substantial pieces of music theatre, a mass, a work for wind ensemble and a three children’s operas (one of them written in cooperation with other composers). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The pieces I\nam going to comment on can be heard on Franksdatter’s soundcloud page (unless\notherwise stated):<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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