Bente Leiknes Thorsen
portraits, foto: Andreas Ulvo
pictures from concerts
COMPOSER
- master in composition from the The Norwegian Academy of Music (NMH)
- commissions from renowned ensembles and musicians
- her music is performed here and there
BOARD MEMBER +
- has had quite a few positions in norwegian music organizations
- in 2023 on the board of Kopinor
Pedagog
- has taught composition at NMH, in high schools and in talent programs.
- has held workshops in compositions for different ages and levels
- personal tutoring in composition, at NMH and other settings, – at all levels up to masters.
and
- has two kids
- podcasts – the show Kompoddistene with Therese Birkelund Ulvo
- runs a side hustle – the used children’s book shop blokk Z
Biography
When composer Bente Leiknes Thorsen asks an entire choir to laugh on demand, it reveals both how genuine laughter implies letting go of control and how composing music somehow implies controlling. Eventually, the singers laugh for real. What exactly makes us hear the difference? Laughing my head off / Singing your heart in (2024) explores transitions between the artificial and the authentic, between music and sound, depth and surface, freedom and control, joy and sorrow, individuals and their roles, works and their performance.
The composed laughter points back to works like The Feminist Guide to the Sinfonietta (2018/2021). Here, Thorsen is on stage together with the ensemble, verbally confronting the lack of gender balance among composers of Western art music. Her resentment is strong, still alternating between the apparently sincere and the extremely constructed. The piece builds on music by the Norwegian composer and pianist Agathe Backer Grøndahl (1847-1907) with a nod to Benjamin Britten’s pedagogical work about the orchestra.
In earlier works by Thorsen such as nattasang fra andre siden av havet (Lullaby from across the ocean, 2008), the opposition between genuine and composed emotions is less pronounced. However, music for bass flute, percussion and dark strings encounters immediate humanity in the recorded voice of a babbling child. When juxtaposing such unprocessed recordings with live orchestra music, listeners are invited to hear human voices as music and instrumental sounds as human bodies at work.
Thorsen is also able to make an ordinary symphony orchestra sound like a summer’s day by the Oslo fjord, complete with seagulls crying, bicycle wheels spinning and the gentle sound of rippling sea waves. In her orchestra work Birds and bells (2023), these musical descriptions are not only skilfully crafted but aims to elicit a smile. In the video documenting the first performance, the audience reacts with heartly laughter. When Thorsen occasionally returns to ‘just’ writing music, as in the trombone piece Lush Darkness – glaring light (2021) with the self-reflective subtitle ‘(because the loudmouthed forgot the beauty of a simple tone)’, this subtlety and immediacy continue to resonate.
text: Hild Borchgrevink