The week in between

It´s now 3 days left until I´m on stage playing the Scriabin piano concerto with the Trondheim Symphony Orchestra. So this week has been the week "in between." It´s quite special to do two big romantic piano concertos within 1,5 weeks. I spent Monday in Oslo having a lesson with Håvard Gimse. Pretty "hardcore" coming straight from Moldova and Grieg. But it was really nice to shift the focus instantly like that. And not surprisingly, I´ve spent the rest of the week practicing the concerto. 

But here´s the funny thing: I feel like this has been the calmest May ever. How can I say that having 2 major concertos? Well.. it´s just 2 things. 2 times 30 minutes - that´s not too bad? Earlier I´ve had tons of things to do! I think it´s all the smaller things that´s stressful for you. If you have plenty of "little" things, it´s harder for the mind to cope with. Now I have 2 things. And it´s not possible to practice hours and hours either, because it´s so physical. And if you practice alot when your body and mind is tired, you might as well create more problems for you than you actually solve. So I think it´s better to take care of body and mind, relax, be in the present moment and enjoy everything that´s happening. If you think too much about the exam, you will be stressed out, and it´s absolutely useless. So you get more energy, and you can practice as much as you have to, in an effective way, and stop. This is probably also a reason why everything has felt calmer and more joyful this spring - simply a development of consciousness. Or maybe I freak out tomorrow after the first rehearsal with the orchestra and regret having said all this. Haha. 

I met the conductor today! A very nice and funny Lithuanian guy called Vytautas Lukocius. We went through the concerto and talked about some things. So I´m pretty sure that the rehearsal tomorrow won´t be THAT frightening. He was definitely not frightening and we had dinner afterwards. I actually look forward to it because it will be nice hearing the lovely music as it should be, not just with the solo piano part. It´s also nice to play WITH someone and having another person being in charge of the tempo for instance. It´s like the responsibility is less compared to doing a solo recital where everything is solely on your shoulders. Vytautas actually gave me credit for learning this particular concerto, because it´s really difficult compared to the effect. Meaning, you have to spend a lot of time practicing music that´s really difficult, but doesn´t necessarily sound impressive. Sometimes you play a heck of a lot of notes that you really don´t even hear because the orchestra is pretty much covering you. 

The british pianist Stephen Hough actually made a point out of this with the Rachmaninov 2. concerto. He says it´s perfect for a nervous pianist (like Rachmaninov himself) because the piece starts with some simple chords, kinda to try the instrument. Then you play all these fast broken chords that the audience won´t really hear because the orchestra has the main theme in fortissimo. So you could play nervous mistakes and it won´t matter anyway. And then you have this slow lyrical melody after this which is so beautiful that the audience will adore it. And Rach 3, the legendary and huge concerto, starts with a melody which is so simple that anyone could play it. Intelligent composing :-) The Rachmaninov concertos also has a lot of wonderful candenzas and other passages which are effective - it has an effect on the audience. They also end with some great virtuoso climax so that the audience will jump off their seats and shout "bravoooo." So it´s of course more tempting to spend alot of time preparing a concerto like that. Scriabin requires a lot of work and effort, but it´s not frequently performed. But I´m glad I did it! And it will be a great week I think. 

Moldova

2 days late this time, so sorry about that. I got back from Moldova late Sunday evening and was very busy on Monday. But here it is. 

I´ve had a wonderful week in Moldova performing the Grieg A-minor concerto with the National Philharmonic Orchestra on the 15th. The national day of Norway was on May 17th, so that was very convenient. Very interesting idea that a country like Moldova chooses to have a Norwegian day doing a full Grieg concert! Grieg is a very popular composer in Moldova too! I arrived Tuesday evening and was showed around a little bit. The town Chisinau is quite beautiful because it´s so green! Moldova was under Sovjet until it fell in 1991 and they got independent after this. They´ve been struggling with the economy ever since. But they have very nice wine, wonderful food, nice people and quite a lot of culture. The Eastern European culture is very strong and it has always been the case it seems. There are so many wonderful musicians coming from Russia and other Eastern countries. And I have very great respect for them, especially the pianists of course being a pianist myself. They have this wonderful ability to combine tremendous technique with amazing soul and musicianship. It´s like they understand that music isn´t just mere entertainment, it really means something! 

And this is of course reflected in the fact that people show up for the concerts! This concert was sponsored by the Norwegian Embassy in Romania. And as I know that many people are reading this blog, I would like to give my warmest gratitudes to the organizers, both from the Embassy and the Moldovan side! It was a very special day for me and it was such a pleasure meeting all of you and getting to know you a little bit. This also goes for the Scandinavian guests that attended! Thank you for the sight seeing, the food, the Eurovision Song Contest Party (!!) and openness. And of course thank you for inviting me to the 17th of May celebration. And last but not least thank you to all the people who attended the concert! This concert was free of charge, and "everybody" came. By everybody I mean that people brought their entire families and showed up to enjoy some nice music. The house was full (5-600 people I think?). It certainly warms my heart to see that so many people will come because of sheer interest of nice music. Classical music in the west is by many people regarded as a "high culture" thing. Like it´s something that gives status, something refined that people from the higher parts of society can identify with. For others it´s an intellectual thing. Music can be intellectual too, but if don´t let go and let it flow into our inner software, you miss the whole point I think. I´m not trying to generalize here, but I know that many people in the west a reluctant to go to such concerts because they don´t think they are smart enough, fine enough or good enough for it. Like it will go right above their heads.. This is why I thought it was so nice to see all these people on the concert in Moldova. They applauded between the movements, some cell phones rang, some people came late, some people left in the middle.. they broke the "rules.." But in a way that was nice. As long as it´s honest and comes from the heart. Classical music should never be "dangerous." Come and enjoy.

For me personally it was a wonderful experience to do this concert. I think the end result was pretty satisfying. Of course not perfect. But that doesn´t matter. I´m not striving for perfection anyway, as long as I felt that I gave something from myself, that there was some passion, fire, something genuine about it. I have this idea in my system how it feels to be an experienced concert pianist. First of all I can say that it must be a very demanding thing to do in life. I think to be a concert pianist like I´m picturing it, you must have a tremendous technique, energy and openness. I faced some external challenges that I´m sure all concert pianists have experienced at least once in their life. For instance, the touch of the piano was very hard and heavy. This means that you have to work and be active on every single note. Playing in a hall were the acoustics are bone dry is NOT helping. In addition to that you have to face your own body and mind´s reaction to the stressful situation. AND it sometimes gets hot as hell on stage - which it was. And you have to deal with all this at once and do a performance as good as possible. It´s like compressed spirituality! You have to accept it, be in the moment, flow along with it and expand and express. Perfection for me is being able to do those things! It´s not about playing the right notes, it´s about having the inner security, energy, intensity and tremendous power and confidence to face all these things flawlessly. I´m not there yet, but I didn´t expect that either. But I´m grateful for the challenges I faced, because that only gives more experience to it. And experienced is highly needed. I´m more and more happy about choosing to dedicate the 6 months at the Banff Centre in Canada from September. It will give me much more technical power and stability + much more. If I can also give some sincere dedication to the deep development of my hardware and software (body and mind), everyday, in Banff and hopefully intensely through a Yoga and Meditation retreat in India, it would also strongly contribute career wise. (Although that is about developing in all parts of life.) 

There´s probably alot more I could say about Moldova, but I´ll leave it there for now. I´m only a week away from the next big concert now. That will be Scriabin Piano Concerto with the Trondheim Symphony Orchestra next Wednesday. It´s my final Master Exam concert And that´s a very special thing because it means that my time at the conservatory in Trondheim is definitely over. It´s a symbolical (and also practical) transition. I no longer have any formal ties to Trondheim and everything is open. More on that next time I guess! :-)

Sundayblog on Monday

Hi everybody! Sorry about the delay! This blog is one day too late unfortunately. The reason is that I´m on my way to Moldova and I spent last night in Oslo. I wasn´t able to log on to internet for some strange reason. But after touching some wires, unplugging, replugging, restarting, it suddenly started working. So.. here I am. 

As I said, I´m on my way to Moldova! I´m going to perform the Grieg A-minor concerto with the Moldova National Philharmonic Orchestra in Chisinau. And that´s a really cool thing. I think I could say that it is the biggest adventure of my life so far. Maybe that sounds strange since I´ve played like 50 concerts in the USA and Canada. But that was, and still is ofcourse, my own project. I planned it, booked it and organized it myself (more or less.) So that´s indeed adventurous. Some people have actually compared it to some of the good old Norwegia adventurers of the past. You get a crazy idea of doing something wild on your own, and you go through with it. But the thing with Moldova is that I didn´t move a finger to achieve it. I simply got an e-mail from a lady in Moldova called Irina almost a year ago. She invited me to perform the Grieg concerto with their orchestra the 15th of May 2009. I actually thought it was spam! So I almost deleted it. But after reading the entire e-mail (twice), I realized that this was the real thing. So it´s so special for me because it was an invitation from a European orchestra to be their guest soloist. And it´s the first time! 

I don´t know much about Moldova though. I know it´s a financially poor country. They´ve also been part of Romania and Russia. I also know they had some sort of a riot there during the election this winter because the communists won the election. I think.. Don´t quote me on anything here.. I don´t really pay attention to the news. But what I recently discovered is that they are a major wine producer! They have really nice food and great wine. And I also assume that it´s quite cheap! This is the beauty of being a Norwegian tourist - in any country really. But especially in Eastern Europe: you feel rich! You can eat on restaurants and have dessert and wine everyday if you want to. And I think we want to. I mean.. if you buy a cocktail in Oslo you could easily pay as much as $15 - which is absolutely ridiculous.. In Moldova i think you can have dinner with wine and dessert for around $10 all in all. Again, don´t quote me on this... But you get the picture. 

I really look forward to it. I´m having fun practicing the Grieg Concerto now, and I think it will be more fun than frightening to be on stage performing it. According to my impression from YouTube, the Moldova Philharmonic Orchestra is a pretty darn good one too. You know, the eastern musicians are really good! They are very disciplined, technically great and with a lot on their hearts. Just listen to the Russian pianists for instance. When they play, it´s like the heaviness of the Russian history is compressed in what they do. Rachmaninov is a great example. Music is not just something humans invented for fun - or out of boredom or need of entertainment. Music is telling something, expressing something that you can´t do with words. It connects people to their emotions, to nature, to anything that can be called divine, to history, to human psychodrama... etc. In holistic societies like for ex India, music is a part of the entire system that is created to help humans to Enlightenment. Nature and even Cosmos create music on their own. Music is vibration, and everything else is vibration also. So I´m thinking that music is bigger than us.. 

But in our western culture which is based on logic rather than intuition and holism, it´s very difficult to understand this. For a strictly intellectual mind, it´s hard to see music as something of significance to our society or the human race per se. Even many (most) musicians of today don´t connect to the deeper, spiritual meanings of music. We create competition out of this too and reach for perfection. Even classical music sometimes becomes a vehicle for our intellect and logic, or let´s say it´s a reflection of everything else. But I think we´ve reached the summit now. There are so many pianists that are able to play anything with tremendous technical perfection. And their expression is limited to: make a fish-face here, grin here, make a big gesture here, move your body in a slightly irregular, circular movement here.. and voila! you have expression - at least expression enough to score high in competitions. But the general public will see through it.. not with their mind, but with their intuition. I think we will soon yawn over great technical achievements. We´ve heard it before... And even if they get acknowledgement for a period, I don´t think they will be remembered in the future. Because I believe that true art goes beyond intellect.. REALLY true art also goes beyond our emotions I think.. it gets part of spirituality. 

Anyway.. Next Sunday I will be back in Oslo after Moldova! I´ll tell you everything about it! 

Society and such things

When I wrote the last blog, I had been meditating a lot and felt I had a good overview of Society, the illusions and all that. This week has been somewhat of a contrast! For instance today I´ve spent the entire day - really! like 9 hours - writing e-mails to possible sponsors of my next USA tour, application for financial support, budget, itineraries, I´ve been searching for flights, rental cars AND I´ve done all the tax papers by going through everything that has happened on my account in 2008. I like to do administrative work on Sundays, but this was almost an overkill. Earlier this weekend we´ve celebrated 1st of May by having lunch with elderly aunts, uncles, friends of the family, parents and sister + husband. 

So to put it this way: if my mind was wandering to some kind of atmospheric sphere of bliss last Sunday, I´m firmly back on the ground this week. And interestingly enough, that´s an exact demonstration of the dilemma I was mentioning last week. Because this is society... It´s work that HAS to be done just by the fact that we choose to live in this society. Money and formalities exist, so we have to deal with it. But when you meditate intensely and experience a state where you´re happy and blissful for no reason - just by existing, just by BEING - you realize that your life would be perfectly fulfilling just by sitting in a park watching the clouds. So this becomes somewhat of a dilemma. So on one side, you realize that the only right thing to do is to say "no" to society. Because if you attach yourself to it, and let yourself be controlled by it, then you´re responsible for it too. Because you are society. So if you are on a spiritual path, you will reach a place down the road where you feel you have to let go of society. It can be difficult and painful, because you see how wicked it can be and how much stupid drama people create in their lives. And.. we have made ourselves dependent on it, we identify with it and attach ourselves to it. It´s almost as we feel we´re losing track of reality by doing it. But as I said - how can something created by people´s minds and egos be called reality? If you start thinking in a deeper level...

As I claimed last week: society is the collective projection of the human mind. The Indian Master Nithyananda was once asked by someone in the audience: "How do I solve a troubled mind?" And Nithyananda, who is a very funny man actually, answered: "Why do you use 2 words for the same thing? Mind is trouble by nature. You can´t solve mind with mind." By mind, I guess he means the human psychology and thought processes. Now.. if society is mind, society will be contradicted, fragmented and troubled by its very nature. It´s a psychodrama! This leads to some very interesting conclusions, for instance that politics can never create peace. And if your mind is society, then the only thing that can be done if you really want peace to happen in the world (in your society), is to clear your own mind and let love, peace and bliss enter your being. If enough people do that and radiate it to the world, which they would do automatically, peace would be achieved. So, total peace can only be achieved by creating peace in each and every individual on the planet! By penetrating the mind and going beyond it, the trouble will be replaced by peace. So the problems in society can´t be solved by fighting with it and creating war (physical or psychological). It has to be penetrated from the inside and replaced by love. And it can only start with you! Politics is just a way of controlling the outer things - society - mind - ego - trouble. But we have to go IN! I think this is extremely fascinating!! 

So I guess the dilemma is solved by living in society and do all the things needed. But without attaching to it, not being psychologically controlled by it, not taking it too seriously, not involving any ego into it. Then you will always carry the joy and bliss from the meditative state of the NOW and doing all the societal things, but merely as a game or seeing it as a show of the human psychodrama. Because you would know that if everything crashes - you loose all your money, things, job etc - you can still sit in the park watching the clouds roll by in perfect fulfillment.