Jury's reasoning: Magnar Åm has been a clear presence in Norwegian music life since the early 1970s with his low-pitched voice. He cultivates transparency and simplicity, and wants to strip music down to its core. In an interview he says: "I cannot hide my own starting point, the fragile, childish. It is the entrance to life." Where […]
/ 27/10/2014 / codex
The jury's reasoning:Magnar Åm has been a prominent presence in Norwegian music since the early 1970s with his low-pitched voice. He cultivates transparency and simplicity, and wants to strip music down to its core. In an interview he says: "I cannot hide my own starting point, the fragile, childish. It is the entrance to life."
Where such a project could easily end in simple naïveté, Åm manages with his integrity and originality to convey depth. "Input, Present, Output" is a great example of this. The work was premiered during the Hardanger Music Festival in June 2013, and is shaped like a viola concerto with string quartet. It has three movements, slow-fast-slow, which represent a development in cognition.
The work is gripping from the start, and speaks strongly with simple means. Listening to this music gives the impression of following a person through a thought process. Expressive themes arise from nothing, the music retreats, and the rest is up to the listener. Through an unpretentious medium, the composer manages to create a story that touches.