really old newss
And sing... - New release!
Anette Pauline Forsbakk May 2016
Maja S.K. Ratkje: And sing ... Performed by CIKADA, Oslo Sinfonietta, Maja S.K. Ratkje(voice), and Christian Eggen(conductor)is released on 2L.
This album interleaves the composer's own voice as a performer with the ensemble sound of CIKADA and Oslo Sinfonietta. In "And sing while thou on pressed flowers dost sleep" the voice is pre-recorded, and the sound files are played through loudspeakers placed among the musicians. In Concerto for Voice (moods IIIb) the composer is performing live a solo part for amplified voice, using much wider dynamics and improvisation. While performing has influenced and inspired Maja S. K. Ratkje's composing, the opposite is also true – even though it's too simple to say that she improvises like a composer and composes like an improvising musician: "The process of composition is primarily about mastering form and contextualising elements – both the actual sounds and the formal units – musically," she says.
Immersive Audio is a sonic sculpture that you can literally move around and relate to spatially; surrounded by music you can move about in the aural space and choose angles, vantage points and positions. Dolby Atmos and the Auro-3D on this Pure Audio Blu-ray delivers a new standard in immersion, fully enveloping the audience in a cocoon of life-like audio.
Get your digital copy here
RPS Music Awards nomination
Maria Fonneløp April 2015
The beautiful piece Winding Bodies (3 knots), written for Cikada by Liza Lim, is shortlisted in the chamber-scale composition category for the RPS Music Awards. We are proud and excited!
Welcome to our new site!
Anette Pauline Forsbakk March 2015
We are all very happy to announce that our sparkling new web site’s finally up and running!
After many long months work we are proud to show you our up-dated look.
So, what’s new? We’ve refreshed the content, and tied it all in with our social media activity. You’ll find new biographies and a 2012-version of the repertoire list. We’ve also added some new features, such as a mobile friendly version of the site and an easily manageable playlist.
We aim to always keep you updated on our concerts and latest events.
More exciting news will come, so stay tuned!
Winter recordings with Cikada and 2L
Maria Fonneløp January 2015
2015 holds a lot of record projects for Cikada, together with many great partners and fine composers. This winter, Cikada is recording two different projects with the prestigious record company 2L: In January, we've finished the last recording session in the Cikada/Carola Bauckholt project. In february, we are opening a brand new recording project with Maja Ratkje, and this record will be the first cooperation project with Oslo Sinfonietta in many years.
Tune in for more news about exciting record projects from Cikada in 2015!
Towards Greenland!
Anette Pauline Forsbakk September 2014
We’ve been touring with the “Towards the Island” concept throughout 2013 and 14, and are happy to finally be able to do a concert in Nuuk, Greenland! This is the place to be this coming weekend, if you, like we will be, find yourself on this gigantic island 3500 km west of mainland Europe.
Ultima 2014
Anette Pauline Forsbakk September 2014
The annual Ultima Oslo Contemporary Music Festival is just around the corner. We’ve been looking forward to this since last September! This year we’re excited to present a program consisting of new and older works by the wonderful Liza Lim, together with a new piece by Henrik Hellstenius. Read more about the concert here.
Check out Ultima’s program! See you in Oslo during the festival!
Cikada @ New Directions, Piteå
Anette Pauline Forsbakk May 2014
The coming weekend you’ll find us up north in Sweden, where we proudly present two concerts, with music by Salvatore Sciarrino and Henrik Hellstenius.
Both the composers will be present.
Read more about the concerts and New Directions here
We have moved!
Anette Pauline Forsbakk June 27 2013
Visit us at our new home in Sentralen, a 12,000 square foot former bank building in the process of being converted into a production center and venue for culture and art.
Welcome to Hardanger!
Anette Pauline Forsbakk May 8 2013
Hardanger in May: one of the most breath-taking scenery’s in the world, midst in the beautiful apple tree blooming season. Could there be a more wonderful location for a festival?
This year’s festival is dedicated to Vienna anno 1900, then a capital of an imperial-royal empire that no longer exists, and also, the cultural capital of Europe.
Cikada String Quartet has been invited to play several concerts during the 6 days of the festival. Read more about each of them under Events and at Hardanger Musikkfest’s website (only in Norwegian).
Composer Eivind Buene – nominated for the Norwegian Grammy
Anette Pauline Forsbakk February 13 2013
We’re very excited to announce that composer Eivind Buene has been nominated for the Norwegian Grammy, Spellemann, for the Cikada album Possible Cities / Essential Landscapes!
Possible Cities / Essential Landscapes is a cycle of chamber music and ensemble works written between 2005 and 2009, commissioned by Cikada and Ensemble Intercontemporain. Eivind Buene (b. Oslo, 1973) studied at the Norwgian Academy of Music from 1992 to 1998. He writes for ensembles, orchestras and soloists, engages frequently in collaborations with improvising musicians. In addition to music, Buene has written critique, essays and novels.
Get your own copy of the album here.
Cikada Point4 visits Trondheim and Modena
Anette Pauline Forsbakk January 29 2013
This spring, Cikada Point4 will visit Trondheim and Modena with the project Ruminations on Sciarrino/Feldman, inspired by two of contemporary music’s most important figures.
Cikada Point4 began as a fusion between four musicians – Jon Balke, Kenneth Karlsson, Bjørn Rabben, and Ingar Zach. Percussion instruments and conceptual sounds were a mutual passion for the partnership from the beginning. Since February 2006 Cikada Point 4 has worked using different approaches towards improvisation based on compositional elements. Cikada Point 4 uniquely blends two virtuoso duos from contemporary and improvisational music and creates their music partly through improvisation, and partly through samples and fragments from existing music.
Cikada Duo (Bjørn Rabben and Kenneth Karlsson) are seasoned interpreters of postwar modern music, and has worked with many of today’s leading composers. Rhetorical figures from contemporary music are transferred into the realm of improvisation, where the duo is at liberty to shape and mold these residues into something else. It becomes a point of departure for the improvisational acts. The tradition of free improvised music is channeled through Zach and Balke, who between themselves have covered a wide scope of different species on the vast field of improvisation. And both have worked actively through their musicianship to transgress the boundaries between many different musical discourses.
Most of all, the music of Cikada Point 4 is about mapping out new areas for the cohabitation of these different musical minds. And in this process we, as listeners, are invited to explore new musical topologies.
Cikada returns to HCMF//
Anette Pauline Forsbakk November 16 2012
Following our four concerts last year, we’re all very happy to return to Huddersfield for this year’s festival.
We’ve got two exciting premiere works on the menu, one by our fellow Norwegian and also this year’s composer in residence Maja S K Ratkje and one by Sam Hayden (UK). We’ve also brought an old favorite work of ours by the french composer Gérard Pesson.
Cikada to participate in New Music: New Audiences
Anette Pauline Forsbakk October 31 2012
New Music: New Audiences (New:Aud) is a cooperative European project running for two years. From 17 European countries, 16 national music organizations and 31 ensembles specializing in contemporary music will be gathering to take part. Together, they will be examining and trying out tomorrow’s concert forms and forms of reaching out for the audience. The objective is to bring forth dialogue with a new audience while gathering knowledge about audience development for future use.
As one aspect of the cooperative effort, the participating ensembles will present concerts where new communication forms are going to be tested out and examined. In connection with these concerts, the involved ensembles will also be exchanging repertoires.
New:Aud is running from October 2012 to September 2014, and is initiated by a network of music organizations throughout Europe.
An introductory conference for all of the participants will take place on October 24-25 in Bruxelles. The first concerts will be launched during the spring/summer of 2013.
New:Aud is an abbreviation of New Music: New Audiences.
New:Aud is being spearheaded by the Danish Composers’ Society, where the project management is anchored as well.
New:Aud is supported by the European Union’s Cultural Program and receives financial support from the Nordic Council of Ministers.
Dear visitor
Anette Pauline Forsbakk October 12 2012
Cikadas program throughout this autumn and winter is a varied menu, consisting of new world premieres for the Cikada Ensemble (Maja S. K. Ratkje, Sam Hayden), chamber concerts ranging from the unexpected in Cikada Point 4:s improvisations to the established modern classics played by the Cikada String Quartet, and the Cikada Trio performing new pieces by among others Italian Alessandro Melchiorre.
Our ensembles are active not only in Norway – this season we visit England, Italy and Poland. The diversity that lies within Cikada (full ensemble, string quartet, trio and duo) together with the “Point 4″ collaboration with Jon Balke and Ingar Zach gives us a broad palette of musical possibilities. Active since 1989, Cikada shows no signs of old age, but we actively continue to perform, record and commission the music that we believe deserve to be highlighted.
Join us in the quest for truly remarkable new music!
Ludvig Claeson
general manager