Longtime a-ha and solo projects collaborator Kjetil Bjerkestrand turned 70 yesterday, May 18th, and celebrated the occasion with a special 2-hour birthday concert at Kulturkirken Jakob in Oslo.
In addition to performing with his own band HEKS, which also includes Eivind Aarset (guitar), Helge Norbakken (percussion) and Sara Övinge (violin), Bjerkestrand was joined on stage by a number of special guests that he’s previously worked with as a musician, composer, arranger and producer. These included Anita Skorgan, Arve Tellefsen, Hans Fredrik Jacobsen, Rebekka Bakken, Dhafer Youssef, Svein Tindberg and Hedvig Mollestad.
But a special surprise guest had been saved for last; Magne Furuholmen came on stage near the end of the concert to perform the main theme he wrote with Kjetil for the movie “Ti Kniver i Hjertet” in 1994. Eivind Aarset on guitar also played on the original soundtrack. I have uploaded a video clip of the performance on YouTube.
Kjetil: “I have worked together with Magne for over 30 years. We made film music together and called ourselves Timbersound. We felt “timber” was a fitting name, since we are Bjerk [birch] and Furu [pine]. We’re going to play a song from our first collaboration; “Ti Kniver i Hjertet”. We composed music for several movies, and a TV-series, “Hotel Oslo”, which we actually won an Edvard Award for.”
Magne: “I have to say a few words about that movie, Kjetil. It was my first time composing film music and the debut film of Marius Holst. When I was approached I thought ‘oh, this is really cool’. But I figured that I needed to include someone much more experienced than me, and above all considerably older than me. Funnily enough, now we’re almost equally as old!”
Former a-ha FOH engineer Sven Persson was at the mixing desk last night, while a number of familiar faces like Even Ormestad, Ragnar Bjerkreim, Jonny Sjo and others were in the audience. Nettavisen has posted a review of the concert.
A Blu-ray release of “Ti Kniver i Hjertet” was successfully crowdfunded earlier this year, and is expected to be released in Norway later this month.
Magne has also visited the US recently, to oversee the opening of his current exhibition “Esper Lucat (Deluxe Edition)” at The National Arts Club in New York. Esquire Magazine met him in New York and has published a new interview here. The exhibition is on display until 30 May.
Next up, this week he’ll open a large solo exhibition at Galleri Fineart in Oslo called “Before Memory”. It can be seen from 22 May – 15 June.