<\/p>\n
Another side of Bj\u00f8rnstad<\/p>\n
With the release of Ophelia\u2019s Arrival\/Minotauros, many listeners will gain access to an unfamiliar aspect of the career of the highly creative Ketil Bj\u00f8rnstad. Bj\u00f8rnstad\u2019s electronic ballet music from the 1980s is presented here in a collected and remastered version.
\nThe eighties was the decade of the keyboard revolution, and through his ballet projects Bj\u00f8rnstad had an opportunity to collaborate with some of Norway\u2019s best sound designers and synthesizer programmers. \u201cThis was a technical revolution, but it was always the music itself that was the main focus. Even today I still think about the immense knowledge sound designers like Alf Emil Eik, Geir Langslet and Kjetil Bjerkestrand possessed,\u201d writes Bj\u00f8rnstad in the cover notes. \u201cTheir enthusiasm for new soundscapes was contagious. I will never forget the joy of making music that way.\u201d
\nOphelia\u2019s Arrival\/Minotauros gives us an intriguing view of a fascinating period in recent Norwegian music history, and not least an encounter with Bj\u00f8rnstad\u2019s melodious music in a very different context than usual.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
With the release of Ophelia\u2019s Arrival\/Minotauros, many listeners will gain access to an unfamiliar aspect of the career of the highly creative Ketil Bj\u00f8rnstad. Bj\u00f8rnstad\u2019s electronic ballet music from the 1980s is presented here in a collected and remastered version.<\/p>\n
In 1986 the Norwegian theatre director Bentein Baardson asked Bj\u00f8rnstad to compose music for Hamlet, which was Baardson\u2019s inaugural production as the director of Rogaland Theatre. This music formed the foundation for what would become the ballet Ophelia\u2019s Arrival. The ballet was never performed, but the music constituted part of the triple album Three Ballets, released by Cicada Records in 1987 along with Minotauros and Pianology (the last recently re-released on the Hubro label under the title Early Piano Music). <\/p>\n
Minotauros was a major production by the Mexican ballet dancer and choreographer Alejandro Meza for the Norwegian National Opera and Ballet in 1987. \u201cHe had heard the music I had composed for Aniara earlier in the 1980s, and wanted an electronic soundscape that would foster direct interaction with the musicians,\u201d writes Bj\u00f8rnstad. Most of the music was recorded on tape, but the Norwegian jazz-rock group Lava was in the orchestra pit, playing live along with the electronic recording. Later both of these projects were mixed with the idea of a releasing a purely electronic recording.<\/p>\n
Ophelia\u2019s Arrival\/Minotauros gives us an intriguing view of a fascinating period in recent Norwegian music history, and not least an encounter with Bj\u00f8rnstad\u2019s melodious music in a very different context than usual.<\/p>\n
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