Magne and Kieron Tyler in conversation at Tallinn Music Week, April 11th

Magne appeared at the Tallinn Music Week conference in Estonia this weekend, where he was interviewed on stage by author, journalist and music historian Kieron Tyler.

Tyler started the 75-minute conversation by asking Magne for an update on Morten Harket’s situation:

Magne: “Well, I’m no neurologist, but from what I know he is obviously affected by a serious disease, or syndrome. For those of you who don’t know that, it’s Parkinson’s disease. So it’s a serious, life-changing revelation of course. But he’s dealing with it, and as far as I know he’s finding treatment that is allowing him more headspace to look outside of just dealing with the illness, which is really, really important. So we’re just trying to support him in the best way we can. But of course it does affect any kind of plans that we make. They have to suit him, whatever we decide to do.”

He went on to ask Magne about the upcoming Apparatjik album:

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“We’ve been together more this year than we have for the last couple of years. We went up north of the polar circle for eight days, and the dogma was; let’s write, record and mix a new album in those eight days. And live with the result, no fixes. And we did. Long dark days and nights up there. We only brought synthesizers, so it’s an electronic record. We don’t know when it’s going to come out. We actually invited students about three weeks ago in a university in Norway, we gave them access to all the sound files and said; if you think you can improve this or make it different, we’re happy to have you contribute. And it resulted in a kind of performance, with about ten different groups of students who hadn’t worked together before – some were musicians, some were working on visuals – a really diverse group of people. We don’t know what that’s going to look like yet, but we’re gonna try to make some sort of film evening based on the music.”

Magne also mentioned that Apparatjik’s long-awaited stage production based on the life of Julia Pastrana may finally get to see the light of day:

“There’s also a potential theater performance – I don’t know if it’s going to be an opera or a musical – but there’s a story that we’ve been working on for many, many years and tried to realize. It would take too long to explain the story, but it’s a very touching story on a human level that dates back to the early 1800s. There’s a theater that just approached me to try to realize that. So quite a lot of projects going on in that regard.”

The interview also delved into Magne’s creative process, his visual art, the early years of a-ha and later career highlights.

The two of them also discussed issues of copyright and AI in relation to creative arts in today’s world and into the future.

The interview session ended with a number of questions from the audience.

Thanks to Andreas from a-ha-forum.de for providing a video stream of the interview.

Update 21/4: During his visit to Tallinn, Magne was also interviewed by Sten Teppan for the Estonian radio station Vikerraadio. A one-hour a-ha special, which includes Magne’s answers in English, is now available for listening here.

Photo by Nina Djærff,
provided by Tallinn Music Week.

Magne will appear at the Tallinn Music Week conference in Estonia on 10-11 April 2026 to speak about his career in music and visual arts, the conference announced on its website:

“In conversation with British author, journalist and music historian Kieron Tyler, Furuholmen will reflect on the extraordinary journey of a-ha and his parallel career in visual arts, revealing what it takes to break out from a small European country, the lessons behind creating a global pop phenomenon, and the importance of sustaining artistic integrity.”

Kieron Tyler has extensive knowledge about Magne and a-ha, having written official a-ha press releases and liner notes for a number of a-ha deluxe editions and Savoy reissues.

The conference is part of the larger Tallinn Music Week Festival (9-12 April) and held at the Nordic Hotel Forum in Tallinn.

More info about the event and tickets can be found at tmw.ee.