Archive for the ‘Morten’ Category

Morten to visit Brazil / Private performance

Morten performing with a-ha in Rio, 2009. 
This time he's going on his own.

Some info from a-ha.com:

“Morten will be in Rio de Janeiro on January 29 to celebrate the completion of his new solo album and reconnect with the South American fans! There will be a Q&A where Morten will answer questions from the fans, followed by a meet & greet opportunity.”

The event will be held at the FNAC Bookstore in Rio. Please visit a-ha.com for ticket details.

 

Side2.no recently had an interview with Norwegian singer/songwriter Tom Hugo Hermansen, who released his debut album Sundry Tales earlier this month.

In addition to his solo project, Hermansen is also a member of the covers band Radiojam. The interview mentions that Radiojam was once hired as a backing band for Morten at a private event.

“He came to Kristiansand to rehearse with us, and he wanted an authentic feel to it. So we rehearsed in an old, worn-down rehearsal room at Samsen Kulturhus. Playing with Morten was great, and I’d be happy to do it again”, Hermansen says.

“And he liked my EP and said it was annoyingly good. Annoying because there are always new artists trying to challenge his own music. But I have quite a while to go until I’m on Harket’s level.”

The interview doesn’t specify exactly when this performance took place, but the EP Hermansen mentions was released in 2009.

Morten invites fans to choose a-ha song

Back in October, it was announced that the concerts on Morten’s upcoming solo tour would include “some selections from the a-ha catalogue”. This info was met by widespread scepticism and negative reactions in the fan community.

In a somewhat surprising move, Morten (or someone in his management) has now come up with an idea to have a vote among the fans to choose one of those a-ha songs. But it must be an album track that hasn’t been performed live since 2000.

Head on over to Morten’s new, official site at mortenharket.com to see a list of the 31 songs you can choose from and details on how to vote. The voting ends on January 27th.

Russian dates confirmed

New promo picture

The six previously known Morten Harket concert dates in Russia have now been confirmed on Morten’s official Facebook page – plus a seventh concert in the city of Tyumen.

Tickets have already been on sale for weeks, though (as is often the case in some countries).

Here are all the dates and venues:

16 April: Palace of Sport, Krasnoyarsk
18 April: Circus, Novosibirsk
20 April: Palace of Sport, Omsk
21 April: Palace of Sport, Tyumen
22 April: Concert Hall, Yekaterinburg
24 April: Crocus City Hall, Moscow
26 April: Little Ice Palace, St. Petersburg

This brings the total number of concerts on Morten’s 2012 tour up to 18 – with more to come.

The tour may start in South America in February/March, but those dates have not been announced yet.

Morten: New tour dates and album info

Three new dates on Morten’s 2012 solo tour have been announced today:

29 April: Congress Center, Hamburg, Germany
3 May: Jahrhunderthalle, Frankfurt, Germany
8 May: Ancienne Belgique, Brussels, Belgium

Additionally, the concert venues in Munich and Berlin will be Kesselhaus and Tempodrom.

Tickets for Brussels go on sale November 10th, while tickets for all the German dates will go on sale November 11th.

 
There is also a new and official Morten Harket page on Facebook, which will provide news about the upcoming album and tour.

The page reveals that the album will include “one song by Will Young and possibly one or two songs by Paul Waaktaar-Savoy”.

It also states the first single is out in January or February, and that the album will be released by “Starwatch/Universal Germany in Eastern and Western Europe, as well as in South America”.

The Facebook page also confirms that Morten will be touring in South America next spring, as Harald Wiik has previously mentioned.

Morten attends Crosby/Nash concert

Legendary folk-rock duo David Crosby and Graham Nash played a concert at Oslo Konserthus on Sunday, October 23rd, where they dedicated the song “Just A Song Before I Go” to a-ha.

“I’d like to dedicate this song to a-ha. They’re friends of ours. This is for you, Morten”, Nash said as he introduced the classic tune, which first appeared on the album CSN in 1977. A live clip can be seen on YouTube.

Morten was in the audience at Oslo Konserthus last Sunday, just as he was when the duo last performed in Oslo six years ago.

Graham Nash’s friendship with the members of a-ha, and especially Morten, resulted in him doing backing vocals for two songs on a-ha’s Analogue album in 2005; “Cosy Prisons” and “Over The Treetops”.

In an interview that same year, Nash talked about his respect for the members of a-ha:

“I met a-ha for the first time in Barbados, and they made a very positive impression on me. They are different personalities that come together to make something creative. I really respect what they’re doing, and we made good contact. (…) a-ha is a great band, and the songs that I did backing vocals on are excellent”.

Russian tour dates?

According to the ticket site show.ru, Morten will do a concert in Moscow on April 24th. Tickets are supposedly already on sale.

After contacting concert promoter Andrei Agapov, Russian fans were told there will be an additional five concerts in the country.

Here are all the dates:

16 April: Krasnoyarsk, Russia
18 April: Novosibirsk, Russia
20 April: Omsk, Russia
22 April: Yekaterinburg, Russia
24 April: Crocus City Hall, Moscow, Russia
26 April: St. Petersburg, Russia

But please remember that these are all unconfirmed for now…

More tour details

According to a press release posted at music-news.com, Morten’s touring band this time will be the a-ha musicians Karl Oluf Wennerberg on drums and Erik Ljunggren on keyboards/bass, plus Dan Sunhordvik from Magne’s solo band on guitar.

In addition to solo material, he will also perform “some selections from the a-ha catalogue”.

Morten collaborates with Pet Shop Boys and Kent

(Picture by Just Loomis)

Manager Harald Wiik is interviewed in today’s VG, and reveals that members of Pet Shop Boys and Swedish band Kent have written songs for Morten’s new album.

Here are some quotes:

“This has been an open process where Morten obviously has written a number of songs himself, but we have also been in contact with various other songwriters.

When there’s an opportunity to work with Pet Shop Boys and Kent, of course we’ll say yes. Both bands have extremely good songwriters and have been at the top of Morten’s wish list.

We are well underway with the new album. Our goal is to be finished by Christmas, which would mean that the album is released in March next year.

There will also be a solo tour that starts in April. But this all depends on whether we get finished in time or not.”

Pet Shop Boys vocalist Neil Tennant has in previous interviews talked about a-ha being one of his favorite bands and about Morten having a fantastic voice.

Kent vocalist Joakim Berg has also praised a-ha and their songwriting skills, most recently in an interview with ABC Nyheter last year. You may also remember that his brother Adam Berg directed the music video for “Summer Moved On” in 2000.

 

Update: Wiik provides some further comments to Dagbladet about the album and tour.

Regarding the songwriting collaborations, Pet Shop Boys have written one song for the album, while Joakim Berg and Martin Sköld from Kent have written two songs together with Morten.

Work on the new album started in April this year. It’s being produced by Steve Osborne, and will be released by Starwatch/Universal.

Wiik also shares some more details about the tour:

“Morten will be touring all over Europe, starting in mid-April, and there’s likely to be a tour in South America in February/March. Plans for the fall of 2012 aren’t ready yet, but we assume the tour will include Japan and Oceania in that period.”

UK dates announced

Three Morten Harket concerts in the UK have been announced by a-ha.com today:

11 May: Bridgewater Hall, Manchester, UK
13 May: indigO2, London, UK
14 May: Symphony Hall, Birmingham, UK

a-ha.com says there will be a pre-sale for all three shows on the a-ha Facebook page starting on Wednesday, October 26th, while the public sale starts on Friday, October 28th via Gigs and Tours.

 

To keep track of all the dates on the 2012 tour, visit the Morten Harket tour page.

Paris date added

French promoter Gérard Drouot Productions has announced a Morten Harket concert at La Cigale in Paris on May 9th.

There will be a pre-sale 10am on Monday at gdp.fr, while the public sale starts on Thursday, October 27th.

 

Meanwhile, tickets for the Zurich concert on May 2nd are now available at ticketcorner.ch.

 

Update: Zurich and Paris have also been confirmed by a-ha.com now. Album release in March, according to the official site.

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