Summer!

Hi everybody! I´m writing this from Oslo, but I will go back to Trondheim again today. I´ve been her for over a week now to do various things. Last weekend I went to yet another meditation workshop. So I´ve had enough input for a while. I´ve also been practicing with some opera singers for some concerts in August. Singers and opera is really the key words for this summer. I have plenty of things to do now, and most of it is accompanying singers. I don´t think there will be a single moment of boredom this summer. There´s a big one coming up this Saturday on the island Ytterøya. This is an annual event with several great singers, mostly professional and good students. The location is very special because it´s outdoors on an old farm property. You have to take a ferry to get to the island, but the last years we´ve had 5-600 in the audience. Normally we have 2 pianists to cope with this, but I´m alone this year so my plate is full. 

I´ve done a couple of interesting things this weekend. First of all I did a solo recital in a private home here in Oslo on Friday. This guy has a nice Fazioli grand piano in his living room and invites his friends over 1-2 times a year for a concert and party. I was lucky enough to be the pianist this year, and I did a 45 minutes concert with Russian and Norwegian music. The surprising thing was that the Opera Director in Oslo, Paul Curran, attended the event. He´s known for his straghtforwardness and brutal honesty. So it was very nice to hear that he truly enjoyed the concert and the following party. He was a really cool guy to talk to. His main passion besides opera is piano music, and especially Scriabin! So we had some things to talk about. 

The other interesting thing I did this weekend is something TOTALLY different. You see, I´ve been very interested in health and diet in the past. It all goes along with my spiritual interest. And for the past years I´ve been following, more or less, a high-fat low-carb diet. I´ve been enjoying this even though it has been kinda hard to maintain. But since my spiritual interest and insight is developing, I wanted to look into what the spirituality says about food and dieting. I did have an idea of course and I knew that it was a vegetarian diet. But I wanted to really look into it and dig a little bit. And I found exactly what I was looking for. http://www.timelesshealth.net/ 

I was so relieved because here we have this health-geek that has done all the research for me. He has tried all the diets on the market, including the paleo-diet I´ve been into +++. He also have a high spiritual interest and has done spiritual research and backed it up with scientific facts. He made a diet program called diet of the masters. The word masters here refer to the spiritual masters like Buddah, Krishna, Jesus and also the Greek masters, athletes and the healthiest cultures of the world. These people didn´t care if the food they ate was called carbs, proteins or fat. But they sought the food with the most nutrition. Because even if you eat plenty of calories, the body will tell you to eat more if it lacks all the nutrition it needs (vitamins, minerals etc etc). It seems like the old masters ate 1-2 times a day, vegetarian and exactly the right products. You can check out the details yourself if you´re interested. But I´m going to start testing this now. So I prepared my body this weekend by fasting for 24 hours and doing a C24 body cleanse. Quite an experience... 

Ascension

Hello everybody! I would like to write something about ascension today. This weekend I went to Oslo to learn ascension. But what is it? It is a form of meditation. Ascension means to rise up or transcend. And what you´re actually doing is rising above your mind and entering the sphere of the infinite. I´ve been in touch with a variety of self development programs and spiritual systems. Some of them focuses on positive thinking, how to organize the thoughts and use them to your advantage, how do control the thoughts and so forth. Ascension goes straight to the point and learns us how to go beyond thoughts (and feelings and everything else related to the term "mind.") So instead of solving our mental problems and dissolving our bad mental patterns from the outside, ascension takes us straight to the core and dissolves the thought-patterns from the inside. 

I know this is weird stuff if you´re not familiar with spirituality. But all of spirituality (real spirituality) is about finding the Self which is beyond the mind (thoughts/feelings). Or to put it this way: it´s about keeping the focus and attention on the gap between the thoughts instead of the thoughts. And what do we find there? Silence. Is that silence nothingness? According to all spirituality it´s actually everything. If there wasn´t darkness, we wouldn´t have light. If there wasn´t silence, there wouldn´t be sound. Anyway, this is the ultimate meditative state - the goal of all meditation. This is the source of ultimate solutions, unconditional love, infinite energy, peace, total freedom, joy and bliss. Our natural state. This is a state without societal conditionings, limitations and ego. It´s the God within! Our wise inner master. 

Hmm.. I kinda feel sorry for you that you have to read all this, especially if you aren´t interested in spirituality. hehe. But I´m telling you: If you have any problems in your life, this will solve it. All the solutions, energy and love that we need and want in our life and society is exactly there - in the gap between your thoughts. NOT thinking sounds like an impossible task. And it is. But we can all learn how to stop identifying with thoughts. Because thoughts are mostly just bothering us - blaming us for things from the past, worrying about all kinds of hypothetical things in the future and so forth. Thoughts are for the most part just irrelevant associations. If you start observing your mind for a while, you will notice that. We think that we create a nice, streamlined, logical line of thoughts. But they really don´t have any connection. It´s just one thought associating with the previous one. It´s a machine that just runs on its own. It never stops - not even when we sleep! And the problem is that we think we are the thoughts!! We are controlled by our mind, we are addicted to it. It runs our lives, but it´s not really us! You can observe your thoughts, can´t you? If you try right now? Just watch the thoughts for a minute, count them, observe how they are connected. Now.. if you can observe your thoughts, how can they be you? If you are your thoughts, who is observing them? By being inside your thoughts at any time, you can never be in the present moment. You can never really live and express your full potential. Again observe it... a thought is either from the past or the future. 

If you´re still reading this blog at this stage, you probably realize that I´m quite inspired from this weekend of ascension. :-) I´ve been familiar with all these principals for a long time. But as I said, it´s close to impossible to force your mind not to think. Ascension, as far as I can tell after 1 day, is a remarkably simple way to go straight to the core and dissolve the surrounding thoughts. But the point is to stay in the core, not to remove the thoughts. And the thing is that everybody on planet earth have experienced this already. Because small babies are there all the time!! Just watch them. They are totally in the moment, living naturally, without worry, with total love and no limits. You´ve probably also lost yourself to a nice piece of music, having a moment of total silence in the beautiful nature or something like that. You´re also experiencing it all the time, every day. Because there will be a small gap between each thought. We just have to keep the focus on the gap, make the gap longer and longer and expanding from there. This is our natural state. So spirituality and the whole idea of mediation, no-mind etc, is nothing special, intellectual or anything like that. It´s simply about discovering who you really are - to regain your true state. 

Exam Concert

Alright, it´s about time to tell you about my exam concert. Last week was the big week! And what can I say? My head feels kinda empty now after having actually done it. Monday - Wednesday was really intense in one way, and quite relaxing in another way. It was a WONDERFUL experience to work with the conductor and orchestra for 3 days. I learned a lot from it and the result was quite good in the end I think. Being a soloist with an orchestra is a situation that is stressful in a way, but very nice too. I like it a lot. And when I get more experience of the situation I think I will really love it. The relaxing part was that I was actually able to NOT get stressed out in between. I didn´t practice too much or think too much about the performance between the rehersals. 

I was surprised to see quite a number of people attending the concert at 1pm on a Wednesday. There must have been 150-200 people there. The feeling I had afterwards was: "it was ok.. could have been worse, could have been better." So I guess I did the best I could then! The comments from my friends in the audience were very positive indeed. And the critic from "Adresseavisen," the biggest newspaper in Trondheim, was very very positive and gave a great review. I shared the concert with a flute player, and she got wonderful reviews as well. So it was a very special day for us. He used us as examples of the young and upcoming generation of musicians; well reflected about what we´re doing without being bound by tradition. He said that our performances could have been made on any stage and still be great. 

I must say I haven´t really had time to sit down and feel how it is like to be done with all the studies. I´ve been in Trondheim and somehow attached to the Music Conservatory since the autumn of 2000. So this is the end of an era for me. It is definitely time for me to look outside Trondheim. And it´s not that I haven´t started doing it with all my touring and everything! But I think I should break loose from the town for a period of time now. I can always return later. But for my own musical and personal growth, I think it´s important that I leave this area. I really feel like being based outside Norway for a few years. The US is of course a natural choice for me since I´ve done so many concerts there and started to get good contacts. So I will go for a 3-years O-visa from 2010 and see what happens. But the best thing would probably be to roam  around a little bit. But establishing a kind of base in the US for a period could be cool. 

Being a freelance performer is extremely interesting. The thing I´m thinking about now is "how much to control it and how much to just go with the flow?" In the bigger picture the answer is indeed "go with the flow." But for instance now, I´ve booked a 4 week tour in September, applied for a 6 months residency in Banff, Alberta and started booking another tour in April-May 2010. It is sort of a way of controlling things since I´ve "locked myself up" for a year! But then again, tours should be planned a year in advance and if I didn´t do it myself it wouldn´t be any tour at all. Anyway.. I´m sure it´s just a matter of getting used to it and getting tuned in. After all, the really good gigs are booked at least a year in advance. The big experienced concert musicians are fully booked 3-4 years ahead probably... I guess the only thing I should control is saying "yes" to gigs that I actually want and "no" to the ones that I don´t want. So it all comes down to doing what you enjoy doing the most. It also comes down to trust. I have to trust that things will work out, that I will get enough money, that I will have new ideas, that something will come to me from outside etc. I guess trust is the opposite of fear? The ultimate trust is probably that everything that happens is auspicious. No matter what will happen, it will be a great experience and a source of growth. Good and bad are just labels for our mind and society. It is what it is and it is auspicious. 

So to sum it up: it will be a very interesting period in my life! Ok, now my mind IS empty from all the candy, unhealthy food, beer and lack of meditation and physical exercise following the exam. :-) But I´ve already started to look forward and tomorrow I will be fully operational again. 

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.