Arne Nordheim composer prize 2018

As a cello player, Grenager works principally with improvisation, mainly in SPUNK and Lemur and in a duo with Sofia Jernberg. Together they have played concerts in Europe and the USA, and festivals such as Moldejazz and Kongsberg Jazz Festival. Lene Grenager collaborates with performers from disparate traditions, and integrates techniques such as electronics and sampling into much of her work.

‘We need music and artistic expression to challenge our preconceptions, and which helps us keep up the process of change. Arne Nordheim’s Composer Prize contributes to highlighting composers and everything they mean for our culture,’ says culture minister Trine Skei Grande.

From the jury’s statement on the prizewinner:
‘In the Norwegian composition milieu, this year’s award winner was ahead of the game in pointing the way towards approaches that have become part of the “lingua franca”. With improvisation at the heart of her practice, she has made use of her chosen content – whether folk music or anything else – and treated it with both a composer’s sense of architecture and a musician’s hands-on contact with materiality.’

(Photo: Harald Solberg)

About the Nordheim prize:
Arne Nordheim’s Composer Prize was initiated in 2001 on the occasion of the composer’s 70th birthday. The prize is awarded every other year during the Ultima Festival.
The jury consists of Håkon Berge (chair), Ida Habbestad (journalist and critic) and Asbjørn Schaatun (composer and professor).

Previous winners:

2016 Alfred Janson
2014 Magne Hegdal
2012 Øyvind Torvund
2011 Trond Reinholdtsen
2010 Ruben Sverre Gjertsen
2009 Magnar Åm
2008 Ragnhild Berstad
2007 Nils Henrik Asheim
2006 Ole-Henrik Moe
2005 Sven Lyder Kahrs
2004 Cecilie Ore
2003 Lars Petter Hagen
2002 Kåre Kolberg
2001 Maja Solveig Kjelstrup Ratkje