Syklus – World premiere

The Norwegian National Youth Orchestra conducted by Johannes Gustavsson will give four performances of a new orchestral piece, Syklus (click link for more information).

In the spring of 2021, after more than a year of COVID restrictions, I felt the need to write music with a sense of flight, something light and not too heavy and serious. I simply ended up writing bicycle music. The inspiration comes from an actual bike ride I had with my family (wife and two children), the first real ride after long periods of lockdown, home schooling and quarantines. The speed of the bikes and the wind whistling around us gave a strong sensation of freedom. We also discovered that our four bicycle bells were tuned in a sore and beautiful minor chord. I have tried to transfer some of the feeling of speed and the slightly nostalgic sound of bicycle bells to the orchestra: The harmonies are based on the bicycle bells and the melody of a phrase that kept spinning in my head while we rode. Four of the musicians play the exact bicycle bells we used on our trip, and a percussionist also uses a bicycle as a percussion instrument.