Nils Henrik Asheim

Nils Henrik Asheim (b.1960) enjoys a combined career as composer and
performer. He took his education at the Norwegian Academy of Music and
Sweelinck Conservatory in Amsterdam. Asheim has written several chamber
music pieces, works for symphony orchestra, organ and choirs, as well as
projects in public space, for theater and opera. He has been awarded a number
of prizes for his work.
Besides playing the classical repertoire on the organ, Asheim has developed a
personal style of improvising. This has led to several recordings both as solo
performer and in collaboration with musicians like Anne-Lise Berntsen, Ruth
Wilhelmine Meyer, Lasse Marhaug, Paal Nilssen-Love and Frode Gjerstad among
others. In his position as organist of Stavanger concert hall, he regularly
organizes Organ Nights where the instrument appears in eclectical combinations
with performers from various genres and art forms.
Since 1991 Asheim has lived in Stavanger where he is active as a composer,
musician and organizer. He was the principal initiator of the founding of Tou
Scene, an alternative centre for contemporary arts in an abandoned factory
building, and responsible for its development over a period of 10 years. Asheim
has been the resident organist of the new concert hall in Stavanger since its
opening in 2012. Here he has displayed an innovative way of creating activities
around the organ, and managed to get a large audience for the instrument.