Australian Chamber Orchestra Explores Grieg And Beyond With Henning Kraggerud

Norwegian violinist Henning Kraggerud joins the Australian Chamber Orchestra as soloist and guest director for a September national tour, Grieg and Beyond, which celebrates the music of Norway’s most well-known composer. The concert includes a world premiere by Ross Edwards and the Australian premieres of music by Kraggerud himself.

Henning Kraggerud is Artistic Director of the Arctic Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra, is a composer with more than 200 works to his name and performs internationally as a soloist.

He has an extensive reach with a career that spans the roles of performer, artistic director, composer, arranger and improviser, following in the footsteps of famous violinists like Fritz Kreisler and Eugène Ysaÿe.

“I start every day by improvising for about 20 minutes,” says Kraggerud. “…..I want the path from thought to output to be instant. I’m personally against this thought of controlling everything, looking at the bow and looking at the fingers; I think the brain works best if you can sort of set it free. And if I need to work on some basic technical thing, I still do that as an improvisation. It’s much more fun!”

Kraggerud has built a reputation as the world’s leading interpreter of Grieg. Addressing the dearth of Norwegian works for violin and orchestra, Kraggerud and colleague Bernt Sime Lund, arranged all three of Grieg’s violin sonatas as concertos with orchestral accompaniment. Their arrangement of Grieg’s Third Sonata will be performed in these concerts with the ACO.

Kraggerud is a regular performer on both violin and viola in concert halls around the world including the Wigmore Hall, the Bruges Concertgebouw and the Berlin Konzerthaus. His extensive discography on the Naxos label includes Mozart’s Violin Concertos Nos. 3, 4 and 5 featuring his own original cadenzas, and the three Grieg violin sonatas, arranged for violin and chamber orchestra. His original compositions have been commissioned by ensembles including the Brodsky Quartet and the Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra.

Henning Kraggerud plays on a 1744 Guarneri del Gesù, provided by Dextra Musica AS.

The programme:
GRIEG In Folk Style from Two Nordic Melodies/ ROSS EDWARDS Entwinings (World Premiere) /GRIEG (arr. Henning Kraggerud and Bernt Simen Lund) Violin Concerto (Sonata) No.3 in C minor (Australian Premiere) /HENNING KRAGGERUD Topelius-Variations (From Topelius’ Time) (Australian Premiere) /GRIEG (arr. Richard Tognetti) String Quartet No.1 in G minor

Tickets: call 1800 444 444 or visit www.aco.com.au