Free lunchtime piano recital by Eldbjørg Hemsing who is regarded as one of Norway’s most promising young artists.

Grieg Sonata No 2
Szymanowski Mythes
Waxman Carmen Fantasy

Eldbjørg Hemsing - violin
Sveinung Bjelland - piano

Eldbjørg Hemsing is regarded as one of Norway’s most promising young artists, captivating audiences and critics alike with her performances and prompting Aftenposten in Norway to describe a recent performance of Bach’s Chaconne as being performed ‘with extraordinary musical authority and intensity’.

Eldbjørg has already performed with many of Norway’s leading orchestras including the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Trondheim Symphony Orchestra with Josep Caballe-Domenech, the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra with Alan Buribayev, the Norwegian Radio Orchestra with Peter Szilvay and the Oslo Camerata. Abroad she has appeared with the Zurich Chamber Orchestra, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, the Jyvaskyla Sinfonia in Finland, the Czech Chamber Orchestra of Pardubice, the Ashland Symphony Orchestra in the USA, as well as making several appearances with the Ukrainian National Philharmonic Orchestra.

Future engagements include return visits to the Trondheim Symphony Orchestra and Norwegian Radio Orchestra, a tour of Norway with the Trondheim Soloists and a tour of Spain with the Oslo Camerata. In January 2010 she will make her debut with the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra. Festival appearances include a return visit to the Northern Lights Festival in Tromsø and Oslo Chamber Music Festival, and concerts at the Bad Kissingen Festival in Germany.

As a recitalist Eldbjørg has appeared at the Wigmore Hall, the Verbier Festival, at the Stavanger Chamber Music Festival and at AlpenKlassik in Germany.  In 2008 she opened the Bergen International Festival, performed Bach with Bobby McFerrin and Arve Tellefsen at the Olavsfestdagene Festival in Trondheim and gave a series of concerts at the Oslo Chamber Music Festival.

Eldbjørg has received many national and international prizes, and is continually praised for her ability to connect with the audience. In 2006 she won Musician of the Year in Norway’s Young Musician Competition, and that same year was awarded the Audience Prize at the Verbier Festival. Eldbjørg won 1st Prize and Audience Prize in the Virtuos Competition in Norway and subsequently represented Norway in the Young Musicians 2008 final in Vienna, where she was a prize winner and received the audience prize after receiving the most votes from viewers in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. She is the current recipient of the Norwegian Radio Orchestra’s prize for Promising Young Artists.

Eldbjørg is a versatile musician, equally at home performing folk music on the Hardanger Fiddle as classical music. She often performs in chamber groups with such artists as Håvard Gimse and Patrick Gallois, and has appeared at the Verbier Academy and Seiji Ozawa’s Academy in Switzerland. She also performs in a duo partnership with her sister Ragnhild. 

Eldbjørg Hemsing is well known in Norway through her radio and television appearances and has performed during State visits for the King of Norway.

Eldbjørg Hemsing was born in Valdres in Norway in 1990 and started to play the violin at the age of five. At the age of seven she was accepted into the prestigious Barratt Due Institute of Music in Oslo where she received lessons from Alf Richard Kraggerud and Stephan Barratt-Due. She is currently taking lessons in Vienna from Prof Boris Kuschnir.

Eldbjørg Hemsing plays a GB Guadagnini violin from 1754 kindly on loan from the Dextra Musica Foundation.

Sveinung Bjelland has most of his musical background from Central Europe, mainly through studies with Hans Leygraf at Mozarteum, Salzburg and Hochschule der Künste in Berlin. He finished his studies in Berlin with the highest degree and distinction, and he put himself strongly on the map in 1999, when he was named ‘Young Musician of the Year’ by Concerts Norway (Rikskonsertene), this ranking beside numerous prizes he has been awarded.

After this he developed into an unusually interesting, prolific and versatile artist. He has been a soloist with the leading Norwegian orchestras with distinguished guest conductors and visited various concert series and festivals in Europe, where he has made his mark just as much as a soloist as in a chamber music setting, performing with artists like Pahud, Collins, Mørk and Wispelwey. In 2007, a commemmoration year for Edvard Grieg, he performed the Grieg Piano Concerto with great success with several European orchestras.

His duo partnership with the young violinist Alina Pogostkin, the 2005 winner of the Sibelius Competition in Helsinki, has made a particular impact. They have done a brilliant recording of Mendelssohn’s Concerto for Violin and Piano, adding to the pianist’s series of successful recordings, covering a wide and varied repertoire. In duo with Alina Pogostkin the pianist recently performed at the Helsinki Festival and the Beethovenfest in Bonn. More recently his collaboration with the tenor Daniel Behle, winner of the Queen Sonja International Music Competition 2005, has been most successful, through recitals in Norway and Germany.

Sveinung Bjelland must have given listeners with preconceived notions quite a surprise when he featured in the violinist Atle Sponberg’s concert project ‘Atle Live’ on tour in Norway and flung himself elegantly from J S Bach and Mozart to Argentine, Brazilian and jazzy piano virtuosity with the greatest ease, sounding as if he had done nothing other than play Latin American repertoire in the past. The project has more recently developed into the ensemble La Fuente.

In addition to being a frequent festival artist, Sveinung Bjelland has also for several years been a festival director himself – together with the soprano Isa Katharina Gericke. In a short time they developed the artistic profile of the Gloger Festival in Kongsberg into one of the most interesting among Norwegian music festivals, with the exquisite and inspiring space of the beautiful Kongsberg Church as its main arena.

Sveinung Bjelland is a regular and most welcome guest at many music festivals in Norway and on the Continent. His most recent appearance with the Oslo Philharmonic was at the orchestra's great celebration of Messiaen in November 2008. He also recently gave a most successful series of performances of the Grieg Piano Concerto in Gera and Altenburg, and was labelled 'Brillianter Pianist' by the German press.

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