Friday, February 12, 2010

Ballrogg


Wednesday I went to a marathon contemporary music concert in Bergen, mainly to hear Ballrogg, being Klaus Ellerhusen Holm (sax, clar) and Roger Arntzen (bass). Arntzen is known from In the Country and I heard Holm with Holm/Storesund/Narvesen (Norwegian link) a couple of days ago. They played music from their new CD called "Insomnia" (Bolage 2010). A very fine concert (and album!) indeed, and even if a lot of the material is pretty far away from jazz, I will still call it contemporary jazz. Check them out on Myspace, and you´ll find a short video from the concert on YouTube too.
Please remember double l´s and g´s when searching for Ballrogg on the net!

This night was some kind of kick off for the Borealis festival too, and composers Helmut Lachenmann, Gerhard Stäbler and Kunsu Shim were all present. I´ll just have to admit it was all a bit too much for me, and I even had to hide in the cafe for a while, when Kunsu Shim and Borealis boss Alwynne Pritchard wanted volunteers up on the stage!
Applause, humming and some foot stomping is OK, but never involve the audience in the show! Please!

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