Archive for October, 2013

Morten performs for Södra Cell employees

Morten performs in Hurum, October 24th

Morten performs in Hurum, October 24th
(Picture from Grønsand Gjestegård’s Facebook page)

Morten did an intimate solo concert in Hurum last Thursday, October 24th, in connection with a private dinner held for 150 former employees of the local Södra Cell Tofte cellulose factory, which closed its doors in August.

A total of 295 people lost their jobs when the owners decided to cease production.

“Morten has a personal involvement in this issue. That’s why he wanted to take part. Normally he doesn’t do events like this”, Jan Morten Trønnes of Södra Cell tells newspaper Røyken og Hurums Avis.

“He felt sad that the factory had to close, and he can’t understand why Norway doesn’t want industrial facilities that can produce renewable energy”, Trønnes says.

The dinner was held in a barn at Grønsand Gjestegård, and Morten apparently performed songs from “his entire career”, including a couple of new ones. He was accompanied by producer Lars Hustoft on keyboard.

Magne to take part in ‘Choreography Of Sound’ symposium

Magne will be in Karlsruhe, Germany on Tuesday November 5th, to take part in an international symposium called “Choreography Of Sound – Between Abstraction and Narration”.

He will do two different presentations in the afternoon:

3:45 pm: “Everybody is a Composer – Art Slam with Magne Furuholmen”
“In projects like “Everybody is a Composer” (Oslo National Museum) or “Cathedral Footsteps” (Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin) Magne Furuholmen examines the conditions of a space and the dynamics between performer and audience together with the artist-collective Apparatjik. Through audience participation, new compositions emerge as collective works of art. How does everyone become a composer? How does such a heterogeneous sound find its form? How does rhythm become image? This presentation takes the form of a dialogue with author and pop-expert Jenni Zylka.”

4:30 pm: “Complicate Your Life – Decomposing and recomposing a pop song”
“Since Pete Townsend – inspired by his encounter with Gustav Metzger – in the 60’s made the destruction of instruments into a dramatic live gesture, destruction and decomposition have become as fundamental to rock music as its connection with visual art.
In Magne Furuholmens workshop the participants will experience how de- and re-constructing a pop song can create new meanings. By reconfiguring pop songs Furuholmen refers to the emergence of sampling in the 90’s that radically challenged questions of ownership and copyright.”

More info is available on the symposium’s website. The event is free and open to the public, but reservations need to be made before October 31st.

2013 BMI London Awards

Morten and Magne in London, October 15th

Morten and Magne in London, October 15th
(Picture from BMI.com)

Morten and Magne attended the 2013 BMI London Awards on October 15th, where they were presented with the BMI Million-Air Award, in recognition of “Take On Me” having been played four million times on U.S. radio.

A video clip of them receiving the award can be seen here (starts at 03:10). There is also a short interview clip on YouTube.

More pictures are available on BMI.com and Zimbio.com here and here.

Morten and Magne previously received the same award at the BMI London Awards in October 2007, when the song had been played three million times on U.S. radio.

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