The Norwegian Society of Composers (Norwegian: Norsk Komponistforening) was founded in 1917. The Society's main objectives are to promote its members' music and secure their rights.
As of today the Society counts 185 members who meet regularly for discussions and seminars. The Society works towards creating opportunities for the dissemination of contemporary music and for increasing public awareness of this art form. Contemporary music is promoted via several channels, including the society's record label Aurora, and through collaboration with concert producers and festivals.
The Society negotiates on behalf of its members in matters concerning remuneration and performing rights. It acts in an advisory capacity to the Ministry of Culture and Church Affairs and is represented on several boards (such as the Norwegian performing rights organization TONO) and public committees. The Norwegian Society of Composers offers legal, financial and practical aid to its members and provides information for the general public.
Together with its sister organizations in the Nordic countries, the Norwegian Society of Composers arranges the annual festival Nordic Music Days.
Much has been learned about early music in Norway from physical artifacts found during archaeological digs. These include instruments such as the lur. Viking and medieval sagas also describe musical activity, as do the accounts of priests and pilgrims from all over Europe coming to visit St Olaf's grave in Trondheim.
The music of Iceland includes vibrant folk and pop traditions, as well as an active classical and contemporary music scene. Well-known artists from Iceland include medieval music group Voces Thules, alternative rock band The Sugarcubes, singers Björk, Hafdís Huld and Emiliana Torrini, post-rock band Sigur Rós, post-metal band Sólstafir, indie folk/indie pop band Of Monsters and Men, blues/rock band Kaleo, metal band Skálmöld and techno-industrial band Hatari. Iceland's traditional music is related to Nordic music forms. Although Iceland has a very small population, it is home to many famous and praised bands and musicians.
The Nordic Centre in India (NCI) is a consortium of leading universities and research institutions in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden. It was established in 2001 with the objective to facilitate cooperation in research and higher education between the Nordic countries and India. Through academic exchange NCI seeks to strengthen Indo-Nordic ties and understanding.
Olav Anton Thommessen is a Norwegian contemporary composer who has been one of the foremost modernist composers in Norway since the 1970s. His main compositions include Et glassperlespill and Gjennom Prisme. He is a former professor of composition at the Norwegian Academy of Music and has also been an influential in music education and music organisations in Norway. Thommessen has played a significant role in aesthetic discourse in Norway and is known for his modernist and atonal stance. He has engaged in a critical dialogue with his former student Marcus Paus that includes the opera monologue The Teacher Who Was Not To Be; a 2015 debate between the two was described as "the biggest public debate about art music" in Norway since the 1970s.
Henrik Hellstenius is a Norwegian composer and musicologist.
The American Composers Forum is an American organization that works for the promotion and assistance of American composers and contemporary classical music. It was founded in 1973 as the Minnesota Composers Forum and is based in Saint Paul, Minnesota. As of 2000 it was the largest composer-service organization in the country.
The Society for the Promotion of New Music (SPNM), originally named The Committee for the Promotion of New Music, was founded in January 1943 in London by the émigré composer Francis Chagrin, to promote the creation and performance of new music in the UK by young and unestablished composers. Since 1993 it has awarded the annual Francis Chagrin Award and the Butterworth Prize for Composition. In 2008, it merged with three other networks to form Sound and Music.
The BIT20 Ensemble is a contemporary music ensemble from Bergen, Norway, founded in 1989. It was formed in the merger of the quartet, Bit4, and Ensemble 20.
Vladimir Graić is a Serbian composer of popular, film and television music. Among other pieces, he composed the song Molitva, performed by Marija Šerifović, which won the 2007 Eurovision Song Contest.
Nordic Music Days is the oldest ongoing collaboration among the Nordic countries: a festival for new Nordic music that was founded in 1888 and had its origins in existing musical collaboration. It is one of the oldest and best respected festivals for contemporary classical music in the world. The festival is unique in the respect that it is arranged by the composers themselves. Each year one of members, the national societies of composers, arranges the festival on behalf of the Council of Nordic Composers.
KODA is the collecting society for songwriters, composers and music publishers of Denmark.
Åse Hedstrøm is a Norwegian contemporary composer.
Jon Mostad is a composer from Fredrikstad, Norway. He received the Norwegian state three-year scholarship for artists from 1982 until 1984.
Uusinta Ensemble is a Finnish chamber ensemble, focusing on contemporary music. Until 2013, the ensemble was known as "Uusinta Chamber Ensemble", or "Uusinta-kamariyhtye" in Finnish.
Marcus Nicolay Paus is a Norwegian composer and one of the most performed contemporary Scandinavian composers. As a classical contemporary composer he is noted as a representative of a reorientation toward tradition, tonality and melody, and his works have been lauded by critics in Norway and abroad. His work includes chamber music, choral works, solo works, concerts, orchestral works, operas, symphonies and church music, as well as works for theatre, film and television. Paus is regarded as "one of the most celebrated classical composers of Norway" and "the leading Norwegian composer of his generation."
The Swedish Society of Composers is a professional organization based in Stockholm, Sweden, representing Swedish composers of contemporary classical music. It was founded in 1918 and today has 370 members, of which 347 are composers. The president is Martin Q Larsson, since 2010.
Khalid Salimi is a human rights activist, culture and arts critic, former music columnist for weekly Morgenbladet and an advisor on cross-cultural and art-related issues for the Nordic Culture Fund. He is Artistic Director of international performing arts festival Mela Festival, organized annually in Oslo, Norway by Mela Foundation, and Chief Editor of Samora Forum Magazine. He is currently director of Melahouse, an independent cultural community center of performing arts. Salimi is regarded as one of the most influential intellectuals in Norway with an immigrant background.
Jan Erik Mikalsen is a Norwegian composer of contemporary music, living in Oslo.
Geir Johnson was a composer, writer and initiator of culture projects living at Nesodden outside Oslo. He was born in Fredrikstad, and received his first musical training as a soprano soloist in boys' choirs in Oslo, followed by music training in piano and singing, as well as choral conducting studies with Knut Nystedt. His own performance career spanned from many years of choral conducting, via a short career as singer and keyboard player in a rock band, to performance artist in a multi-artist collective titled The TRASH Ensemble.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
