Music Without Borders

On Tuesday 20 October, at University of Agder, Kristiansand, myself, Bjørn Ole Rasch and Ingolv Haaland will be presenting work in progress from the artistic research project Music Without Borders, within the Artistic Research Forum. I am involved as a visual artist, with the ultimate aim to produce a video installation that utilises some of the audio-visual material generated during the project. At this point it is too early to say what the final result will actually be, but we have so far made recordings with some great musicians from Norway, Asia and The Middle East. The picture below is one of my favourites, mouth harp virtuosos extraordinaire Sigurd Brokke, from Setesdal in Norway. His new cd, simply called Munnharpe II, is a fantastic demonstration of just how much it is possible to get out of one of the world's most basic instruments. Inspiring! The music is also timeless - even though he is playing pieces that are in some cases quite ancient, they sound fresh and contemporary. If somebody played me this and told me it was newly composed music by a contemporary composer, I'd believe them!