Mark Adderley:
It seems to me that I have at last reached a stage in my musical development where I have managed to create a room for myself in which I can move about quite freely. I have fashioned for myself tools and materials which I can harness to my creative thoughts and feelings for Music, and produce works which I hear correspond rather faithfully with my inner imagination. The tools and the materials from which are produced my compositions are un-teachable attributes. One creates one`s own design from learning from the models of others; by imitating and absorbing the works of one`s rolemodels, idols, heroes, call them what you will. One creates what one is through the examples of what others were. In the end it is the Creative Spirit of the creators, I am here, of course, including the performers, which guarantees the coherence and consistency of a piece of music. The title refers to a picture by Paul Klee called ‘Twittering Machine‘.

Henrik Hellstenius:.
’Between two’ is written in the form of a spiral in time. The harmonic material and the soundmaterial is circulated in an oblique way, making the piece rotate around a small amount of longer and shorter harmonic stratas and soundobjects. This material is then composed into three different types of events which the piece consists of, defined as ’chorals’, ’improvisations’ and ’variations’. .

Eivind Buene:
’Delta Ground Duo’ is a variation of ’Delta Ground Blues’ for solo guitar. The music is a hommage to the Norwegian writer Tor Ulven, and is part of a cycle called Anatomic Notebook. Besides being an acclaimed author Ulven was also an enthusiastic blues lover; it seemed a natural thing to base the piece on the form, format and harmonies of the traditional blues. In performance Thomas Kjekstad uses phrasing and figurations more typical of the blues than of the classical guitar. The simple harmonic progressions are gradually transformed until a point at which they no longer appear to bear any resemblance to the blues. In Delta Ground Duo the traditional hierarchy between violin and guitar is reversed so that the guitar takes the role of solo instrument and the violin the role of accompanying instrument.

Knut Vaage:
The idea for this piece came after reading ’Merk verden’ by the Danish scientist and journalist Tor Nørretranders. In his book Nørretranders refers to the Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell and certain theories he published in the 1860s. Maxwell philosophised over the idea of perpetual motion resulting from the ordering of air molecules. Air molecules move at different speeds; if they all moved at the same speed, the temperature would remain constant and there would be no heat loss. Maxwell envisaged a demon in the air sorting the molecules according to their speed, placing them in separate compartments along with other molecules moving at the same speed. The temperature would then remain constant; a warmed-up room, for instance, would require no more energy to stay warm. In practise this would naturally be difficult to do, but the phenomenon is known today as ’Maxwell’s demon’. The title ’A Small Devil Tries to Make Order Out of the Air’ refers to this theory, as do the musical ideas in the piece.

Eliza Weisenbaum:
’I think dying is something very strange. You are somebody, you have a memory, and if I kill you, in one second you will be only a dirty, disgusting object (...) A photo of somebody is a memory of a subject but is now an object. A corpse is a memory of a subject but is now a disgusting object.’ (CHRISTIAN BOLTANSKI) Music from the TV-series ’Neues aus Uhlenbusch’ is used in ’In memory of: (subjects)’ with permission from Graziano Mandozzi. Neil Brennans music from ’The way of the exploding fist’ is used with permission from ’Infogrames entertainment inc.’.

All pieces are commissioned by and dedicated to Lars-Erik ter Jung and Thomas Kjekstad.

Since his debut in 1980, Norwegian violinist Lars-Erik ter Jung has played as soloist with the major Norwegian orchestras, he has been the artistic leader of numerous chamber music and chamber orchestra projects and has worked intensively with contemporary music and free improvisation. He was the principal concertmaster of the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra from 1981 to 1994. Since 2000 ter Jung is more and more engaged in conducting.

Thomas Kjekstad studied at the Norwegian Academy of Music. He is active as a performer of contemporary music, both notated and improvised. He is a member of Oslo Sinfonietta and the Affinis Ensemble and he has performed with several of Norway’s leading orchestras and ensembles. The co-operation in duo Twitter Machine started in 1995, and has through the creative process of free improvisation and commissioning of new pieces led to concerts with the Norwegian Concert Institute and in festivals for contemporary music.

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