Cikada Ensemble

Cikada:

conductor, flute, clarinet, percussion, piano, 2 violins, viola, cello, double bass

The Cikada ensemble was founded in Oslo in 1989, and has from the very outset consisted of flute, clarinet, piano, percussion, string quintet and conductor Christian Eggen.

As permanent members, the ten Cikadas have created a strong ensemble identity, and developed their highly acclaimed profile on the international contemporary music scene synonymous with the Oslo Sound of fresh, vibrant, warm and virtuosic interpretations of consciously selected, contemporary repertoire.

In concerts at major international festivals and on numerous albums, Cikada’s distinct ensemble profile manifests itself in strong programming. Central to Cikada is a devotion to develop close, long-term collaborations with composers and to build composer portraits with both existing and commissioned works over time.

Aesthetically unbiased, Cikada is open to a manifold range of repertoire in combination with a passionately refined approach to concert programming. Each concert is carefully programmed to create a present and welcoming musical flow.

In recent years, the ensemble has enjoyed close collaboration with James Dillon on the commission The Oslo Triptych as well as with Carola Bauckholt, Richard Barrett, Laurence Crane, Asbjørn Schaathun and Eivind Buene, who over time has conceived the cycle Possible Cities / Essential Landscapes for the ensemble.

Cikada has also been at the forefront in numerous recording projects. In collaboration with the Norwegian Radio Orchestra, Cikada recorded the first ever complete studio recording of Morton Feldman’s The Viola in My Life I-IV on ECM. Further CD projects include a portrait of Danish composer Bent Sørensen, where Cikada joined forces with the Oslo Sinfonietta and the trombone player Christian Lindberg on the ECM CD Birds and Bells.

The Cikada musicians also form three formations within the group: The Cikada String Quartet, the Cikada Trio (flute, clarinet, piano) and the Cikada Duo (piano, percussion) work as independent units, adding to the ensemble’s dynamic and diverse identity.

Cikada was awarded the prestigious Nordic Music Prize in 2005.

Liza Lim connects her compositional practice to areas of thought and knowledge such as Australian Indigenous aesthetics (eg: Invisibility for solo ‘cello); Asian ritual forms & performance practices (Moon Spirit Feasting, a Chinese ritual street opera); a Sufi poetics of bewilderment, loss, communion and ecstasy (Tongue of the Invisible); the textilic arts of weaving and knot-making as a cross-modal ‘technology for thinking’ (Winding Bodies: 3 knots), as well as empathy and intuition in an ecology of collaboration.

Liza Lim is one of Australia’s leading composers. She has been commissioned by some of the world’s pre-eminent orchestras including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Bavarian Radio Orchestra, BBC Symphony, WestdeutscherRundfunk and SudwestRundfunk Orchestras, and was composer in residence with the Sydney Symphony from 2005-2007. Her music has been featured at Festival d’Automne à Paris, Holland Festival, Venice Biennale, Tage für neue musik Zürich, amongst many other festivals, and she has made operas and installation works commissioned by the Adelaide, Melbourne, Perth and Brisbane Festivals. She has had close creative collaborations with ensembles such as MusikFabrik, Ensemble Intercontemporain, ELISION, Ensemble Modern, Arditti String Quartet and ICE New York. Lim has been particularly associated with the ELISION Ensemble since the group’s inception, notably composing 3 operas, The Oresteia (1993), Moon Spirit Feasting (1999) and The Navigator (2008) that they performed in seasons in Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Tokyo, Moscow, Paris, Zurich and Berlin. Her fourth opera, Tree of Codes (2015), commissioned and presented by Cologne Opera, Musikfabrik and Hellerau in Cologne and Dresden was described as ‘a major contribution to the music theatre of our time’ (Egbert Hiller, Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, May 2016).

Research into cross-cultural practice in music is at the heart of Lim’s compositional work seen in her catalogue of approx. 70 scores with Casa Ricordi (Milan, London & Berlin) and on CD labels such as Hat Hut, WERGO, ABC-Classics, Neos, and Winter & Winter. She has published journal articles on areas such as intercultural exchange and aesthetics, performer collaboration and distributed creativities. Recent works include How Forests think (2016) for Chinese sheng and ensemble premiered by Wu Wei and the ELISION Ensemble at BIFEM in Bendigo and subsequently toured to festivals in Zurich and Huddersfield; and Ronda – The Spinning World (2016), a work re-conceiving the Brazilian instruments of Walter Smetak, commissioned by Ensemble Modern, which will be premiered at Frankfurt Alte Oper and Berlinerfestpiele Maerzmusik in Feb/March 2017.

Liza Lim has been, since 2008, Professor of Composition and Director of CeReNeM, the Centre for Research in New Music at the University of Huddersfield, UK where she established the highly regarded HCR CD label as well as the Divergence Press and CeReNeM Journals. Now based in Melbourne, she continues in a part-time role at Huddersfield and from 2017 is also Professor of Composition at Sydney University-Sydney Conservatorium of Music. She is Visiting Professor of Composition at Shanghai Conservatory, China during 2017. Lim is in demand as a guest speaker, recently giving talks for Harvard’s Barwick Colloquium Series and at Stanford University and Shanghai Conservatory as well as teaching at international summer schools at Darmstadt, Royaumont and Beijing Central Conservatory of Music. Her recent research has been supported by grants from the British Academy, an Australia Council Interdisciplinary Fellowship and Ian Potter Foundation Senior Fellowship. Other recognition for her work includes the Peggy Glanville Hicks Residency (1995), Paul Lowin Prize for Orchestral Composition (2004), Fromm Foundation Award (2004) and DAAD Artist-in-residence Berlin (2007-08). Liza Lim received her PhD from the University of Queensland, an MMus from the University of Melbourne and BA(mus) from the Victorian College of the Arts. She is a founding member of the Academy of the Arts of the World, Cologne and curated the music programme for their inauguration in 2012.

Maja Solveig Kjelstrup Ratkje, composer and performer (born Dec. 29th 1973 in Trondheim, Norway), finished composition studies at the Norwegian State Academy of Music in Oslo in 2000. Her music is performed worldwide by performers such as Ensemble Intercontemporain, Klangforum Wien, Oslo Sinfonietta, The Norwegian Radio Orchestra, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Fretwork, TM+, Cikada, Mivos and Bozzini string quartets, Quatuor Renoir, crashEnsemble, Pearls for Swine Experience, Torben Snekkestad, Marianne Beate Kielland, SPUNK, Frode Haltli, POING and many more. Portrait concerts with her music has been heard in Toronto and Vienna, she has been composer in residence at festivals like Other Minds in San Francisco, Trondheim Chamber Music Festival, Nordland Music Festival in Bodø, Avanti! Summer Festival in Finland, Båstad Chamber Music Festival and Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival.

Ratkje has received awards such as the International Rostrum of Composers in Paris for composers below 30 years of age, the Norwegian Edvard prize (work of the year) twice, second prize at the Russolo Foundation, and in 2001 she was the first composer ever to receive the Norwegian Arne Nordheim prize. Her solo album Voice, made in collaboration with Jazzkammer, got a Distinction Award at Prix Ars Electronica in 2003. In 2013 she was nominated for the Nordic Council Music Prize for her vocal work.

Ratkje is active as a singer/voice user and electronics performer and engineer, as a soloist or in groups such as SPUNK and BRAK RUG. She has been soloist with orchestras such as The Norwegian Radio Orchestra, Ensemble Intercontemporain, Klangforum Wien, Avanti! Chamber Orchestra and BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. Other collaborations are with Jaap Blonk, Joëlle Léandre, Ikue Mori, Zeena Parkins, Stephen O’Malley, Lasse Marhaug, POING and many more. Ratkje has performed her own music for films, dance and theatre, installations, and numerous other projects. Visual art or text material is often a part of her own work, in installations or staged works. She has made large gallery works with SPUNK, she has made music for a radio play by Elfriede Jelinek, and in 2003, she played a part in her own opera, based on the texts from the Nag Hammadi Library.

Her scores are found at the National Library of Norway’s publishing service, NB noter, and her records are released on Tzadik, Rune Grammofon, 2L, ECM, Important Records and many other labels. Her homepage may be visited at www.ratkje.com

Lars Petter Hagen (b. 1975) is a composer and curator. He is also a foodie and a melancholic, often in combination (as he was once quoted in Dagsavisen: “I go to restaurants alone when I need to unwind”).

Lars Petter’s work ranges from large-scale symphonic pieces to intimate chamber music and sound installations, via works for stage and film. He lives and works in Oslo, Norway.