Espen Reinertsen

Starting off as a saxophone player and improvising musician, Espen's work and interest has diverged into music making and music production of different sorts, as heard on his solo albums Forgaflingspop and Nattsyntese. Using his own voice, lyrics and programming, these albums reflect his desire to bring musical elements together to form an unusual blend.

Playing saxophone is still one of his major occupations, and he can be heard contributing in renowned ensembles such as Streifenjunko, Christian Wallumrød Ensemble, Koboku Senju and Trondheim Jazz Orchestra. Awards include SpareBank 1 SMN JazZtipendiat, De Unges Lindemanpris, Spellemannsprisen (Norwegian Grammy) and Trondheim Jazzfestivals Talentpris.

Jon Øivind Ness / Ensemble Ernst

Ensemble Ernst was established in 1996 with a background in the Contemporary Ensemble at the Norwegian State Academy of Music. Thomas Rimul was one of the founders and he and most of the musicians have remained with the ensemble for over 20 years. Ernst emphasizes the more poetic sides of contemporary music; composers as Salvatore Sciarrino, Jonathan Harvey, Francesco Filidei, Toshio Hosokawa, Carola Bauckholt, Ragnhild Berstad, Georg Friedrich Haas, Fausto Romitelli.    

Jon Øivind Ness (1968) grew up in Nord-Trøndelag and is currently living in Oslo, working as a composer. He is influenced by spectral music and music from many other genres, as post punk, prog rock, folk music. He has been a massive Bowie-fan since his awakening in the summer of 1982, and has arranged 10 of Bowie´s songs for classical ensembles since his death.

Homay Schmitz

Homay is a German-born, Vienna-raised musician now residing in London. A colourful background in live performance and music writing/transcriptions led to her finding a home as an In-House Composer at Spitfire Audio, where she continues to explore electronic/traditional music composition and production.

Raph Clarkson

Raph Clarkson is a trombonist, improviser, composer and educator from London. He has developed an eclectic musical career, which spans contemporary jazz, avant-garde improvised music, theatre, contemporary classical music, ska/reggae and South African township jazz. He is best known as the trombonist for the award-winning jazz-punk ensemble WorldService Project, which has seen him tour Europe, China, India and the USA, performing at the London, Tampere, Tokyo and Umea Jazz festivals amongst many others. WSP have also been heavily involved with the Match&Fuse european network, collaborating with artists from across the continent.

Jessica Sligter

Jessica Sligter is an Oslo/Berlin based musician, composer and producer. Sligter’s work explores friction, through synthesis, electroacoustic explorations, gross disregard of established genre delineations, and conceptual frameworks. After years of avid touring, seven releases, collaborative works with artist Jenny Hval, composer Wilbert Bulsink, and much more, Sligter is now anticipating two releases in 2018. Sligter has made commissioned work for amongst others Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, Gaudeamus, and Oslo14 Ensemble. She has performed at festivals such as Le Guess Who?, November Music, Piknik i Parken, and many more. Three of Sligter’s solo records are released by Hubro.

Picture by Jenny Berger Myhre

Claire M Singer

The work of Claire M Singer has been widely commissioned, exhibited and performed throughout Europe and North America. This includes acoustic and electronic composition, fixed media, multi-media, installations and live electronics. In recent years her work has focused on a mix of organ, 'cello and electronics with performances and commissions including Union Chapel; Sound Festival Scotland; Tate Modern London; The Shunt Vaults; Chez Poulet Gallery San Francisco; XMV New York City; Fylkingen Institute Stockholm; Ceremony Hall Austin, TX; Norwich Arts Centre; Kunst-Station Sankt Peter Cologne; Muziekgebouw Aan' t ij Amsterdam and the Barbican.

Photo: Emma Stell

Fredrik Rasten

Fredrik Rasten has worked in different constellations of improvised and experimental music over the last six years and has been touring in Europe and Russia with the duo Pip and the quartet Oker. His work focuses on the acoustic guitar and in exploring acoustic phenomena based on tonal interactions.

Thomas Strønen

Thomas Strønen is a Norwegian jazz drummer and composer, known for more than 60 albums, and cooperation with internationally acclaimed musicians worldwide. Strønen is recording for the great German label ECMand also for Rune Grammofon. As a composer, Strønen has contributed to the release of over forty recordings as well as several commissioned works for festivals.

David Skinner

Oslo-based David Skinner has been a professional pianist and bandleader since 2001. David has toured extensively, visiting Japan (6 times), Finland, and various jazz festivals and dance events in Norway, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Denmark, Germany and Greece. David plays regularly at venues all over Oslo, from Oslo Concert Hall to small jazz bars and private engagements.

He also plays electric piano and synthesizers, and his solo electronic project is called Megacrex. 

Vuo Records

Deep moody pulsating techno and house from the forests of Middle Finland.

Ingar Zach / SOFA Records

Ingar Zach is one of the leading musicians on the experimental scene from Norway. He is known for the wide range of sounds in his ever changing percussion setup. He uses his percussion in an extremely dynamic and personal way and with a meticulous precision in his gentle touch. Now living in Madrid, he concentrates on his solo work and his regular ensembles such as Dans les arbres, Huntsville, MURAL to name a few. He has been dedicated to experimental music and folk music for the last twenty years and he is now touring and recording with his regular ensembles in Europe, Canada, USA, South America and Asia. He founded the Norwegian label for improvised music, SOFA, together with guitar player, Ivar Grydeland in May 2000. 

Vilde&Inga

Vilde&Inga is a young string duo playing acoustic free improvised music, featuring violin and double bass. By exploring nontraditional approaches to the instruments, the duo greatly expands their timbre palette. The wide horizons of colour allow the music to develop slowly and organically, yet with a keen underlying sense of compositional form.

Vilde Sandve Alnæs and Inga Margrete Aas are classically trained musicians from Norway. They started to play together in 2010 and have studied at The Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo. In 2016 they received The Lindeman Prize for Young Musicians. Vilde&Inga tour both in Norway and internationally. They regularly play with percussionist Ingar Zach. Aas and Alnæs are also both involved in a new trio with Sidsel Endresen (voice) named Azkadenya. Festivals they have visited include Oslo Jazz Festival, Only Connect Festival of Sound, Kongsberg Jazz Festival, Vinterlyd festival, Ultima– Oslo Contemporary Music Festival and Sound Disobedience. Vilde&Inga’s first album, Makrofauna, was released on ECM March 2014. They will release their second album ‘Silfr’ on the Norwegian label SOFA May 2017.

Nu:Nord

Mira Benjamin is a Canadian violinist, researcher and new-music instigator.

Since 2011, Mira has co-directed NU:NORD – a project-based music and performance network which instigates artistic exchanges and encourages community building between music creators from Canada, Norway & the UK. To date NU:NORD has engaged 79 artists and commissioned 62 new works. Through this initiative, Mira hopes to offer a foundation from which Canadian artists can reach out to artistic communities overseas, and provide a conduit through which UK & Norwegian artists can access Canada’s rich art culture.

Emilie Heldal Lidsheim

Emilie Heldal Lidsheim is an active violinist, violist and singer song writer, based in Oslo. After finishing her master in performance at The Norwegian Academy of Music in 2013, she has had an active freelance carreer, playing in several ensembles and bands, and as a solo artist with her own music. Her music is inspired by Norwegian folk music, pop and different African music. In addition to her solo carreer she is a member of the orchestra Ensemble Allegria, and is currently freelancing in ensembles such as The Norwegian Chamber Orchestra, Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, The Norwegian Radio Orchestra, Rumi Ensemble, Matona Afdahl Group, Norwegian World Orchestra. 

Kristine Tjøgersen

Kristine Tjøgersen is a clarinetist, composer and visual artist, who lives and works in Oslo, Norway. She plays in the ensembles asamisimasa, Tøyen Fil og Klafferi and ensemble neoN, has collaborated with numerous composers on new works and performs across Europe.

HITYAMAC

HITYAMAC is a Norwegian trio working with improvised music, video art and performance art. HITYAMAC consists of Henrik Koppen (performance, video art, light, sound art), Torkjell Hovland (double bass) and Torgeir Hovden Standal (acoustic guitar). For SVS they have made an abstract audio play which combines recordings of sound performances in different urban environments with improvised music. 

Johan Lindvall

Johan Lindvall is a Swedish pianist and composer based in Oslo. After finishing his master studies at the Norwegian academy of music he's mainly focusing on minimalistic music, both acoustic and electronic, in composition and improvisation. He's active in projects such as Torg, Antler and Mette Henriette.

Kaja Fjellberg Pettersen

Kaja Fjellberg Pettersen is a Norwegian cellist living in Oslo. She is the artistic leader of the string ensemble Oslo Strings, a multidisciplinary string ensemble with numerous collaborations in all kinds of genres. The group, founded in 2013, has grown to be one of the most popular string groups to for recordings and live shows, and the ensemble works more like a band than a traditional chamber group. Open minded to all kinds of music, flexible in the way to learn music and writing their own arrangements, Oslo Strings has become quite unique in the Norwegian music scene.

Ian Anderson

Ian Anderson plays in many different ensembles, including Duo van Vliet (viola and accordion duo), Scottish Ballet (where he holds the position of Principal Viola), yllwshrk (alternative rock band, ‘yellow shark’, where he plays guitar and writes music), and IMOGEN (Berlin-based chamber music collective). 

Recent highlights include Duo van Vliet’s performance of Georg Friedrich Haas’ double concerto for viola, accordion and chamber ensemble, “….”, with the Orkiestra Muzyki Nowej (New Music Orchestra), Katowice; a tour of Europe and Russia with Jonny Greenwood as part of the London Contemporary Orchestra Soloists; playing on Radiohead’s latest album A Moon Shaped Pool (also with the London Contemporary Orchestra); and IMOGEN’s debut tour of Germany with Gilles Apap, presenting a thread of music of all styles, including Ravel, Björk, Frank Zappa and Claude Vivier. At the 2017 PODIUM Festival, Esslingen, he presented his version of Björk’s 1997 masterpiece album, Homogenic, reimagined for string quintet and a variety of miscellaneous objects.

Heard Sound System

The Copenhagen based Heard Sound System, controlled by seasoned music head Jack Maynard aka JBT, will showcase - via vinyl, digital and live performances - the finest musical outsiders and forward thinking mainstreamers originating from and connected to the Nordic lands. 

From experimental electronic styles, post rock and beat science jams in dub to sonic docu-poems, post classical and pop, Heard Sound System will join the dots between modern sounds and ancient knowledge systems, the only constant being the highest level of production and originality by the artists they broadcast to the world.