For composer Anna Berg, the pieces fell into place when she was introduced to contemporary music. “Through contemporary music, I found a depth that I missed in all other music.”
/ 11/03/2022 / Kristian DugstadWho is the composer Anna Berg? What is your musical background?
I am 29 years old from Kolbotn. I have lived with music since I was little, through art school, music school and eventually composition studies at NMH.
When and how did your need to express yourself creatively through music creation arise?
It started quite early. Towards the end of middle school I could have realized that there was no point in doing anything else but making music.
Today your work is contemporary composition. Did you get there through other musical expressions?
I have dabbled in many different areas of music, but it was only when I was introduced to good contemporary music that I felt like something fell into place within me. Through contemporary music I found a depth that I missed in all other music. With that music, I felt for the first time that there was room for what I wanted to create myself.
At the risk of being banal: How does one become a contemporary composer? What is the path from musical interest to a living?
It is not a trivial question at all. For anyone who is curious about composition, I recommend starting to take regular lessons with a good composition teacher.* You can start this early, but there is no danger if you are 28 years old and have just realized that you want to be a composer. In Norway, there is only one preparatory education for composition studies, and that is the composition program at Toneheim Folk High School. A large proportion of the active composers in Norway today have been students there. Many go through Toneheim and on to the composition program at the Norwegian Academy of Music. NMH has the largest academic community for composition in Norway. I would highly recommend that you take an education in composition if you want to be a composer. In a composition program, you gain experience in the fields you are interested in, and you learn tools so that you can develop your own artistic expression. Regarding livelihood, there are few composers in Norway who can make a living from composing alone. Most people have a mixed economy, for example teaching, performing, writing lyrics, festival/concert production, or other jobs within the arts and culture sector in addition to their work as composers. If you want to make a living, some or all of it, from the music you make, there is no way around working steadily to make good music. *If you are looking for a teacher and don't know who to ask, send an email to Toneheim Folkehøgskole and they will put you in touch with a teacher.
You compose for a variety of instruments and ensembles. What determines the musical style of the piece you are working on?
The ideas for each piece determine how the overall expression will be. My pieces often have several ideas in them, where each of the ideas has its own character. I like to decide the overall character of the piece in advance, for example what kind of intensity the piece should have, or whether the piece should be slow or fast, aggressive or more still overall. I am concerned that the pieces should have a whole. This often leads to my pieces being quite different, and I don't mind limiting which musical elements I allow to be included in each piece.
It must be quite a technically demanding exercise to write for such a wide range of expressions. How well do you have to know each individual instrument?
This is a question I sometimes get, especially from students or friends who want to compose but are hesitant because they think they have to know so much before they start. It is rarely a negative to know something about the instrument you are going to write for, but it is also possible to learn about a new instrument at the same time as you are creating a piece for it for the first time. Through the work, questions will arise such as: how bright or dark can the instrument play, and how does it sound? What kind of expression do the different options have, and how does it fit with my idea? I think that is one of the best ways to learn instrumentation, through curiosity about how something sounds and how it fits with your idea. There is a lot of good to learn in instrumentation books about what is the so-called “correct” use of the instruments, but put bluntly, none of this is useful knowledge unless you use the instruments in a way that is interesting for your piece and your idea. A piece can be brilliantly instrumented, and at the same time be enormously uninteresting.
What inspires you?
What inspires me is having time to delve into my ideas and to meet great practitioners.
To what extent do you have a vision, overall or at the work level? Do you have a desire to create certain reactions or emotions in the audience?
I have an idea for each piece that is important to me. But I have absolutely no desire to create specific reactions or feelings in the listener. However, the listener gets an experience through good music, but this experience is not specific, but individual for each individual. The starting point for such an experience is that the music has depth and is not short-sighted. That is why I need time to compose good music.
How do you work practically? Can you briefly take us on the path from inspiration to finished work and performance?
First I think and plan, then I compose, then I test, then I improve, and that's how it goes until I'm done.
There is a lot of work behind every single note, not to mention every piece. What is the most challenging thing about a project?
The most challenging thing is to make money so that it pays to work long, thoroughly, and thoughtfully on a piece.
The works have been performed by a wide range of outstanding musicians and ensembles. However, in 2019 you founded your own Ensemble 3030. Can you tell us about this work and the vision?
I started Ensemble 3030 because I wanted to help create the new generation of musicians, conductors and composers working with contemporary music in Norway. Ensemble 3030 is designed to be a meeting place where everyone can learn about each other's roles in caring for and developing new music. The next concert is in Majorstua Church on April 29th at 18:00 PM, with works by Asbjørn Schaathun, Anders Krøger, Siri Sofie Eide and me, and it's free: https:// nmh.no/konserter/ensemble-3030-2
You have also composed for film, how does this differ from your other works?
I am looking for how contemporary music can contribute to the world of film with the sound of the modern. Music changes and influences how we perceive images, and this is where new music has a lot to offer.
What would you say is your career highlight so far?
The highlight for me as a composer is to work with ensembles over time and hopefully have several performances. This year I have been lucky enough to do this with several ensembles, including Ensemble Ernst, Ensemble Allegria and Arctic Philharmonic Sinfonietta. There are also many young and up-and-coming musicians with a great flair and understanding for new music, and I would like to highlight the Sonoro String Quartet, who performed my piece 'Abrasion II' during the Arctic Chamber Music Festival in Svalbard in February.
Many people lack the language to talk about contemporary music. Do you have any advice on how a curious listener should approach the wonderful world of contemporary music?
The first piece of advice is not to think that contemporary music is a strange world, because that is what makes it incomprehensible. We don't understand music, we experience music. Language comes after the experience. You don't need language to experience contemporary music, music should be experienced. If you want to learn how to talk about contemporary music, I recommend talking to someone who both knows the music and can talk about it. Program notes are rarely any fun to read because they contain many incomprehensible explanations about how the music is made, but not what the music is like.
Which Norwegian composers should we keep our eyes open for right now?
I recommend keeping your eyes and ears open for Victoria Seline Stokland, she creates music with a strong presence and nerve. Other composers I recommend keeping an eye on in the coming years are Benjamin Knutsen, Maia Viken and Martin Korssletten.
Can you share your greatest musical listening experience?
A great musical experience from February this year was hearing Guro Kleven Hagen perform Brahms' Violin Concerto with the Opera Orchestra. Kleven Hagen is able to switch so easily between the powerful and the delicate. She creates strong intensity in her playing and phrasing so elegantly that it is impossible not to be moved when I hear her play.
