A seminar with Mathias Halvorsen

A lecture (in English) with pianist Mathias Halvorsen on April 20th at 12:45 pm at the Music department of IUA. Everybody welcome - free entrance.

Halvorsen presents two projects currently in development where he works with music by J. S. Bach. In the first (The Well prepared piano) he has been working with other musicians and artists (such as Peaches, Laurent Chetouane and Black Cracker) to create altered versions of the piano. The second project is a systematic reworking of the Goldberg Variations with drummer Jan Martin Gismervik where they explore different approches when working with a classical score. 

Mathias Halvorsen lives Reykjavik with his girlfriend and his little son.  He studied with prof. Jiri Hlinka (2006-2010) in Oslo and with prof. Gerald Fauth (2011 - 2013) in Leipzig. In 2008 he founded the Podium festival in Haugesund together with flutist Guro Pettersen. The festival was held for the 10th time in 2017. In 2009 he discovered the manuscript of piano concerto no. 5 by the Norwegian composer Halfdan Cleve at the National Library in Oslo and performed it with the Lithuania State Symphony and conductor Gintaras Rinkevicius. Since 2010 he has been performing concerts in complete darkness as a founding member of the critically acclaimed trio LightsOut.

The last years Mathias has performed regularly alongside Peaches in the duo show Peaches Christ Superstar. The production has visited many festivals such as Theater der Welt in Mannheim and Yoko Ono's Meltdown in London. He has also done several dance and theatre pieces with director and choreographer Laurent Chetouane. One of these, the comedy 'Den Stundesløse' featured Mathias' acting debut at the National Theatre in Oslo, Norway. 

In 2017 Mathias premiered his first opera Dracula, commissioned and performed by the Haugesund Chamber Opera. 

Recently Mathias has performed at festivals such as Brighton Festival, Mofo (Tazmania), Everybody's Spectacular (Reykjavik), Podium Festival Esslingen, Portland Chamber Music Festival and venues like the Münchner Kammerspiele, Onassis Cultural Centre (Athens), Queen Elizabeth Hall (Southbank Centre), Kampnagel (Hamburg) and La Commune (Paris).