CONTEMPORARY // JONAS SKAARUD // (FORTHWITH CAME A CHANGE OVER THE WATERS) AND THE SERENITY BECAME LESS BRILLIANT BUT MORE PROFOUND

This year's winning work in the EDVARD Prize's contemporary category clearly guides the ear towards which sound and musical ideas are to play out. The composer has an exceptionally good grasp of the framework within which these ideas should operate. The work both establishes itself and develops carefully in its beginning with an effortless ease. When this music takes its time, it does so with eloquent sonic patience. The selected means of action build up a natural authority over time. The work's uniqueness is formed with great certainty. Many good works are content with creating such integrity, but in this work this is a musical situation that must be developed further. The outer edges of the framework are explored and the music takes some astonishing turns. Some connections or insights are almost impossible to imagine or discover for oneself, but they will still excite when they are presented or explained. Without threatening the identity of this work, the composer brings out these types of connections and allows some almost inadvertently redeeming moments to arise. When these moments also shape the work's further musical life, the listening experience is lifted to a new level. Jonas Skaarud has, to put it with Hamsun, "... a little ability to look inward, to look far." This work undoubtedly looks inward into its well-chosen universe of sound compositions, but it also reaches out to something far beyond.