You probably grew up with music and movies around you, but your bedroom wasn't next door to the engineer's room in a cinema run by your father and grandfather?
/ 29/09/2015 / codexText: Kai Lofthus, photo: Willy Martinsen
In a house in Fredrikstad and an apartment in one of the world's most beautiful and artist-friendly cities, Altea in Spain, Anniken Paulsen has her musical habitats, considerably better arranged than in the old days and with greater artistic freedom than her father would allow. He himself was a pianist in both classical and jazz, but was concerned that his daughter – who began strumming at the age of five – should stick to classical. As all parents eventually realize, children have their own motivation and they do not always do as you hope or plan. With a different and more personal form of discipline, she developed her musical CV that blew childhood lessons to shreds.
After studying at the Eastern Norway Conservatory of Music (1973-1979), she was a county musician in Finnmark, a regional musician in Northern Norway, a music teacher, an initiator of the Association for Music in the Beginning of Life and a student at the Norwegian Academy of Music (1990-1992). She has toured with the Swedish National Concerts, been a pianist for Olga Marie Mikalsen, had bands such as CveveCompagniet and the pop art duo Always Lulu, composed music to texts by Lars Saabye Christensen and Tor Åge Bringsværd, Cikada has performed her music and she has made many commissioned works, including for Festpillene I Nord Norge, Føling i Fjæra på Hankø, Månefestivalen, Olavsdagene, Glengfestivalen and a TV drama documentary about Edvard Munch. Just like her equally creative mother, she paints, and thinks of art as a whole of many different expressions, including dance, text, video, animation, visual effects and music.
Nature and beauty are two central concepts that influence her music.
– I really enjoy nature and would live up in a tree if it were possible. When we were little, we often traveled north to Kabelvåg, because my oldest brother grew up with our grandparents there. I would run after the butterflies, out into the water and my head would just disappear under, she says.
As a composer, she has an eternal spark and is insatiable for new impulses. Her boyfriend, Scottish Thomas Howarth Kay, is someone she greatly appreciates, including in the work on a musical called Destiny (but which needs a publisher and producer to be realized):
– He has brought out the melodic in me through his lyrics, and he has not grown up with the Jante law, she says and gives the impression of setting high standards for herself: – I could probably have done a lot more, started as a composer earlier, but was busy raising my son Carl Philip, who is now 28 years old. The moment of birth is the greatest thing I have ever experienced. It was he who made me take the initiative for Music in the Beginning of Life. If I had not grown up with such a strict father, I might not have been so critical.
Her debut concert in the University Hall in 1980 was naturally another milestone, with these works on the program:
Arnold Schönberg "Sechs kleine Klavierstycke, op 11"
Maurice Ravel "Water Games"
Anton Webern "Three Piano Pieces"
Franz Liszt "Sonnetto del Petrarca"
Franz Liszt "Concertotete No. 3 in D flat major"
Ketil Vea «Prelude»
Robert Schumann "Fantasy in C major"
Musically, she plays in many camps, and elaborates:
– I am interested in mixing musical expressions, not only within accepted art music, but also lyrics and fairy tales. I don't put myself in any box and am a member of both NOPA and NKF. We all write music together, and I feel at home in both associations.
When we meet her at home in Fredrikstad, a Petrof grand piano, Roland synthesizer (RS-9) and Novation Supernova II take up the most space. The TONO compensation she received this September (“I was lucky and got a lot of TONO money for the concerts last year”) does not necessarily go towards new equipment.
– I don't buy much new. I like to work with a pencil, eraser and ruler. What I'm a little afraid of now is that it might be difficult to get hold of 2B pencils with a 0,9 (mm) lead, she says.
We ask more about how she works:
– When you write for strings, it is given how it should sound, but what about when you work with synth? – Everything is written down in advance, I write down how I should distort the sound and so on. In the performance TimeReport with CveveCompagniet (2002), we mixed contemporary music/rock/pop, the ideas were noted down, then improvised, so not so clearly on notes, but a kind of score. Otherwise, I work at fixed times, writing down hours and how long I spend on this and that movement, she says.
Sometimes things can seem to go haywire:
– When I wrote the music for Munch's Mothers in 2013, I got the finished film at the end of April. It was supposed to premiere, and I was done, with recording on the 14th. At that time I didn't eat and I don't know how I held myself together. I composed 50 minutes in 11 days, for cello, piano and violin.
Much of the time is spent on research:
– This year I wrote the piece Kid•Viking•King•Saint Olav for flute and guitar, and I had never written for guitar before and I had to tell the guitarist that. But ultimately I just have to try to free myself from what I've done before and find the music within myself.
Her partner, Kay, says it's empowering to work with her.
– She has a fantastic ability as a composer to write string quartets, orchestral music and rock. Her understanding of music is incredible. When we met, I wrote some lyrics that she transformed into a great song. Although she can compose in any genre, melody is her greatest strength, finding the right notes that fit the lyrics exactly.
All in all, she is very grateful for everything from her upbringing to the opportunity to work in what she does. Her grandfather took over the Greåker cinema in 1928 and it was run by the family until it was demolished in 1973, the same year she started at the music conservatory. – Growing up in a cinema was a gift. There was film, music, dialogues, drama, everything; Chaplin, musicals, cowboy films, war and Hitchcock. I was born into the incredibly mysterious and scary. I was terrified sometimes and got a lot of emotions for free that I probably release in music. It was not a normal home; for example, we shared the toilet with the audience in the early years. We had a strict grandmother who was very controlling and she took over as cinema manager when my grandfather died. There was a lot of pain in that, but I see everything as a gift and maybe that is why I don't think of my work as a job.
Music as a human development factor is naturally central to her: – It doesn't sound like it now, but I spent many years learning to speak properly. I have taught as a piano teacher and had a number of students who came to learn to play the piano, but at the same time had challenges. A percussionist once told me that he knew of a talented boy, but who had Asperger's. I can take him, I said. He really wanted to learn to play jazz and I saw that he had so much more inside. He made lots, lots, lots of great music. I have had several students with such challenges who have shown their musicality through improvisation.
When she collaborated with Lars Saabye Christensen, he said, according to Paulsen, "I wish I was the one who grew up in the cinema." - I submitted a script to his publisher Cappelen, and it was reviewed by the same consultant as him. The consultant was enthusiastic, but wrote that one must take into account that the child has a bizarre imagination. But none of what I wrote was fantasy.
When she was studying at the conservatory, her teacher, Kolbjørn Ofstad, said she should become a composer. “My father just wanted me to study piano and practice a lot. I took part in piano competitions from the age of 10 to 18. When I was pregnant, I finally brought out the composer in me, my son became my inspiration.
– The only thing I am concerned about is that I should write music that I like myself, even if it is a challenge, she says and explains that she has different approaches to how the work itself is carried out: – When I wrote the fairy tale Hansel & Gretel, a collaboration between the National Concerts, the Norwegian Arts Council and NRK, it was supposed to have 12-13 instruments. I created a system where I could write down the dramaturgy in the fairy tale and then switched to graphic notation, and then to note down the music. With Olav the Holy, which was written for next year's 1000th anniversary in Sarpsborg, I had to start reading about him, including Heimkringla. Then I just wrote, and noted how I wanted the music to express the four movements and tried to imagine what it was like when Olav set out as a Viking at the age of 12 as king on his own ship. In Arctic Light, I had to think "where do the northern lights come from?" Then I read, made drawings and did calculations. With the songs in Destiny, I bring a pencil and eraser, find a café, a glass of white wine, read, look for an expression that captures or colors the text, sing, take notes, and am not afraid to use bizarre chords. For me, composing is not a traditional way of working. I love and am captivated or captivated by contrasts in all art and do not always complicate it with compositional techniques, although I like that too.