Concertos
Arne Nordheim – Spur (1975)
In early 2020 I shared the stage with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra as a part of their yearly “Young Soloists” concert, where select candidates get to perform with the orchestra as soloists. This was my first time playing with orchestra and I had the titanic task of performing Nordheim’s concerto written to Mogens Ellegaard in 1975.
The piece deals with trying to make a mark in history, like a step (Spur) in the landscape. Both allegorically as the alien and lonely accordion shoulders its way onto the classical music stage and the tonal landscapes of it, and as the statement of the concerto performer for the rest of the world and music history; leaving the mark of what their level and output was for later generations to look back to and adore and study for ages. “I was here. I did this.”
For anyone interested in a recording of the piece, please reach out to me via the Contact button on the bottom of the page.
James Black – SPEAK (2017)
I got the honour of performing this wicked concerto with all of its gags and choreographies in March of 2022, for which the composer, James Black (www.jamesblackcomposer.com), wrote the following program note:
SPEAK was written in 2017 for my debut concert from DKDM. I honestly don't remember why I thought writing an accordion concerto for this weird ensemble was a good idea. I think I was still holding onto an idea that I needed to prove I could still write 'normal' classical music to be a worthy composer/artist. A few years have passed since then, and now looking back on the piece I think it deals with breakdowns in communication, or disconnections - for example, between myself and my own work, between myself and classical music, between myself and people around me, between myself and my mental health, between composer and audience, or between notation and sound. I think the biggest disconnection of all is between what I was trying to communicate ("I am a Good Composer") and what was actually being communicated ("I am suffering and I don't know what to do"). The piece is somehow too traditional, too strange, too sentimental, too detached, weirdly proportioned, too square, and too loose all at once. I think it's an accurate representation of my mental state at the end of 2017.
Tryggvi Þór Pétursson – Drekabani (2022)
After planting seeds many years ago, the sprouting of ideas and tending to structures led to the premiere of this new concerto by a long-time friend of mine.
The composer himself writes of the piece:
“Drekabani was written for Flemming as my graduation piece from the Iceland University of Arts. We met to one day when he came to visit to brainstorm and the concept came to me very vividly. There had been so much going on in my head for the last four years, from doubting I would ever become a composer to wanting to make the largest and most ambitious graduation piece ever, and I thought it would be appropriate to address these changes. This piece is thus a representation of that process. The crushing doubt fueled by insecurities are overcome by exploration of the inner life and self acceptance. I have never worked with this saturated amount of concept before, especially so related to my being, but I believe I managed to make a compelling piece from it.”