Bjorn supremacy:
asamisimasa interviewed Interview : Abi Bliss
Anders Førisdal of Oslo ensemble asamisimasa tells hcmf// about performing six-string pioneer Bjorn Fongaard and Simon SteenAndersen's latest spectacular. "Simon's put himself out on a limb with this one. I think it will surprise people, in a good way," says asamisimasa's guitarist Anders Førisdal of Buenos Aires, Simon Steen-Andersen's new chamber opera, which receives its UK premiere at hcmf// 2014 from the Oslo-based ensemble and Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart.
There's a unique blend of people here who are doing free improv one day, writing pop songs the next and composing contemporary music on the third Surprise? Anyone familiar with the Danish composer's audacious, playfully literate experiments with genre and convention such as Black Box Music, which received its UK premiere at hcmf// 2012, knows to expect the unpredictable. So when a member of an ensemble whose links with him stretch back to the start of the millennium says such a thing, it suggests Steen-Andersen won't be using the enthusiastic reception that greeted his work at hcmf// in recent years as an excuse to rest upon his laurels. He has a really intense creative energy, Førisdal adds, which is filtered through his scores and music so you can see how he's working with the finest details of instrumental practice in a really creative way, changing the smallest details and finding really incredible solutions. Having previously performed a portrait concert of SteenAndersen's work at hcmf// 2011, asamisimasa's return to the festival also offers a chance to enjoy further fruits of longstanding relationships in the form of works by James Saunders and Øyvind Torvund, as well as shining a spotlight upon the experimental guitar compositions of Bjørn Fongaard, one of Norway's lesser known musical pioneers. It's a typically wide-ranging offering from the five-piece ensemble - currently comprising Førisdal, percussionist Håkon Stene, Ellen Ugelvik on keyboards, Kristine Tjøgersen on clarinets and cellist Tanja Orning - whose palindromic name stems from a
misremembering of a good-luck mantra chanted by a character in the Fellini film 8½ . Ever since their origins at Oslo's Academy of Music, where school friends Førisdal and Stene teamed up to perform music by German composer Mathias Spahlinger, asamisimasa have been keen to cast their gaze further than the admittedly rich musical landscapes found in their own country. In Norway there's always been a lot of support for Norwegian music, and for commissioning works from Norwegian composers, which is quite unique, Førisdal acknowledges. However, they knew from the early days that the familiar cycle of commissioning a Norwegian composer, touring the subsequent concerts and releasing a CD of the work via the Norwegian Society of Composers' label wouldn't be enough for them. No-one was doing things like Spahlinger; there were no regular Lachenmann or Ferneyhough performances; we were also very interested in Nicolaus Huber. We latched onto that central European critical tradition, in a sense, he says. Yet although asamisimasa are determinedly international in outlook, Førisdal still appreciates the opportunities and diversity of the Norwegian contemporary music scene, citing Øyvind Torvund, Maja SK Ratkje and Lars Petter Hagen as part of the special scene that has grown up, particularly around Oslo. There's a unique blend of people here who are doing free improv one day, writing pop songs the next and composing contemporary music on the third day. We can blend repertoire a bit more freely than groups from the continent; we can pick and mix any way we like and present very broad programmes. Such