Mørkefestivalen 26’: Muddy Listening Without Stabilisers

Address

Rosenkrantz' gate 8,
0159 Oslo

Mørkefestivalen 26’: Muddy Listening Without Stabilisers

Description

Magnus Boye Hansen plays violin. Mathias Halvorsen plays piano. Not necessarily at the same time. LightsOut has, since the start, had a certain reluctance to tell the audience exactly what is going to happen. In the dark there is limited help to be had from your surroundings, and we see no reason to remedy this with a detailed road map. Part of the point is precisely not knowing quite where you are going. Like life itself. For most of us, at least. So: along the way we meet both Bach and Ysaÿe before it all comes together in Enescu’s wild and muddy universe. It is perhaps just as well that they cannot see each other. Enescu has made sure they have more than enough else to think about. Hansen and Halvorsen founded LightsOut in 2011, and have since spent considerable parts of their adult lives learning difficult music by heart, only to play it without being able to see each other. This demands thorough preparation, good ensemble playing and a certain willingness to make things harder than necessary. Magnus Boye Hansen is a violinist and violist and plays day to day in Kringkastingsorkestret. Since 2018 he has also been a member of Oslo Strykekvartett, and he spends the rest of his time largely on chamber music in Norway and abroad. Together with Halvorsen he has, among other things, recorded Christian Sinding’s three violin sonatas. Mathias Halvorsen is a pianist and composer. More about him elsewhere. LightsOut has given concerts in total darkness in Norway, Iceland, Germany, the Netherlands and the USA. Südwest Presse felt that in the dark one «suddenly hears the music in a completely different way, and far more intensively». Stuttgarter Zeitung, for its part, remarked that the musicians played without any possibility of visual communication. WDR was able to establish that the audience was «utterly silent». That last point we still appreciate. The rest you will have to find out in the dark. This concert is part of Mørkefestivalen 2026, organised by Boyes Musikkompani.