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!
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