Christina Sandsengen

We’re super-excited to be speaking today with acclaimed classical concert guitarist Christina Sandsengen; greetings and salutations, Christina! Before we meander down the musical Q&A pathway, how has the freshly-minted autumn of 2023 been treating you?

It has been really hectic but also good. I’ve done a recording with orchestra which I look forward to release, working on my next album, and done a lot of work related travels.

Congratulations on your recent album release, Solace! What served as the inspiration behind this mesmerizing new LP?

The music on “Solace” is about grief, death and “hiraeth” - which means a deep pain or longing. It was painful experiences that inspired the music on Solace, and I wanted to give sound to the emotions like anger and intense anxiety. Through the album, I aim to confront these dark feelings openly, challenging society’s tendency to avoid discussing it in an honest way. I hope that my music can be of help to people in desperate situations, and that they feel less alone. All too often people find that they do not get the help they need, and if they do get it, it is often not in time. There are far too many mistakes in the Norwegian healthcare system, in everything from how people are met to the investigation phase and the treatment. People take their lives because the system doesn’t work, and these are hard facts. Once it is like that, then we know that art can help to comfortgive solace - in hopeless situations. Just being touched by art can help ease some of the bad feelings many people have.

Solace marks your debut as a composer; congrats again! Were there any nerves or any bouts of anxiety when deciding to compose the new album, or did this all happen quite organically?

Yes, it was very nerve wracking! To pour something that personal out on a record, and going so outside my comfort zone was a process, but I felt it was time to rip off the bandaid. I have always broken out a little from the typical classic, and gone a little outside the lines in the way I have played. I know the rules of classical music well, but for me it is more important to play from the heart and according to what feels right to me. I also intentionally bend rules, to create somewhat a disturbing feeling.

Who was your producer on Solace and what did the collaboration between artist and producer look like in the studio?

My dear friend and producer Fredrik Falk is very creative and innovative with a great ear and talent for noise music and sounds. That’s why I wanted him as producer on the Solace album. He was so great and managed to understand on a deep level what I wanted to do and what my intentions with the album was. We did a lot of field recordings and went back to the studio where he worked on the sounds and enhance the different atmospheres and the beauty of the classical guitar as an instrument.

We’re big admirers of the jaw-droppingly gorgeous track After off of your new album Solace. What’s the story behind this little gem of a ditty?

After is about the feeling you get after a funeral for example. When it has been a bit hectic organising everything in all the grief and shock, but you keep going because you have to. And after the funeral is finally over you sit there with an immense empty feeling, feeling like in a void of darkness and everything seem hopeless. It’s also inspired by Norwegian folk music.

In your humble opinion, what differentiates Solace from the Distinguished Competition on the 2023 music scene?

I think Solace is a crucially honest album where I use different elements to not only express but also trigger.

Who inspires you musically?

Leo Brouwer, J.S Bach, Mayhem, Edvard Grieg and John Cage.

How is Solace similar to some of your past music such as Shades & Contrasts? How is it different?

“Solace” is very different from what it is on my previous album “Shades & Contrasts”, where it interpreted the works of other composers. I wanted to make a raw, honest portrait of that feeling of trembling, tumbling—when something almost mythical takes hold of your chest, so you are hardly able to breathe. But when I was a girl, I discovered that my guitar can breathe for me, that it can make a language beneath language.

On “Solace”, my playing style, i.e. the way I have recorded the guitar, is sometimes what you would call «ugly». This is on purpose. There are some powerful chords and slaps in strings here and there, and those slaps have to do with temper, anger and anxiety, and it was important to me to have that in there. We (the producer and I) often had takes where it was too «polished» that we had to delete and rather chose the «ugly» ones, just because of what I wanted to convey.

Can fans look forward to catching you on the touring/ performing circuit in the coming weeks and months?

I will do a tour in Turkey in the winter, and I have a European tour in the summer. Before the European tour I have something planned in LA. Other than that I’m focusing on my next album.

Solace was released via Naxos Records. What makes Naxos the perfect home for you and your music?

(No comment).

What do you have coming up in music for 2024? Have you already began to cast your creative net out for new inspirations?

I want to be a voice for other classical musicians and performers, and inspire others to compose in this genre. I am especially passionate about making people discover the classical guitar, and see the beauty and colours of this unique and sometimes overlooked instrument.