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.

This will be the Blu-ray cover, if the crowdfunding is successfull

Norske Filmklassikere (Norwegian Film Classics) is a project started in 2023 that aims to release Norwegian movies on Blu-ray through crowdfunding.

The latest movie to be added to the project is Ti Kniver i Hjertet [Cross My Heart And Hope To Die] from 1994, which features an original score by Magne Furuholmen and Kjetil Bjerkestrand.

The music by Furuholmen/Bjerkestrand received much praise when the movie premiered and was also released on CD. The main theme was later re-used by a-ha in the song “What There Is” on the Foot of the Mountain album.

If Ti Kniver i Hjertet reaches the target sum of 60 000 kr (or 241 pre-ordered copies) before 16 January 2025, the Blu-ray will go into production. So far all the movies introduced in the project have been successfully funded, more than 60 of them in total.

Ti Kniver i Hjertet, directed by Marius Holst, has previously been released on VHS in 1994 and on DVD in 2006. Among the bonus material on the DVD was a 35-minute interview with Magne about the film music. The Blu-ray discs in the Norske Filmklassikere series do not feature any bonus material, but can offer highly improved picture and sound quality, sourced from the best available master copies and supervised by the National Library of Norway.

The Blu-ray can now be pre-ordered from Platekompaniet, but be aware they will only ship within Norway.

Update 5/1: The Blu-ray has now been successfully crowdfunded and will be available sometime in the spring. It will apparently include both English and Norwegian subtitles.