Roggen/Nyhus is a voice and piano duo with Ingfrid Breie Nyhus.
The two of us started up in 2016, exploring interpretation as such. By 2020 the searching had developed into improvisation and re-composition.

Our processing often starts with learning songs - mostly late romantic lieder - by heart, before we begin experimenting through a set of methods to unlearn and internalize the stories in new ways. Our respective backgrounds from jazz, improvised music and songwriting (Live Maria) Vs classical, contemporary music and folk music (Ingfrid), play along in the interaction. Performing, recording, and thus retelling the musical stories through the reconnected remains that we carry in our bodies, feed back into the ongoing work.

Our explorations so far have resulted in various musical landscapes, from minimalistic, bone dry ones, to lushious, flavish, noisy ones. 

Following the EP Demanten (2022), we released the duo album Skymt digitally, in 2023. A new album called Symfoni, featuring Morten Qvenild, will be released on all platforms 14th June 2024.  The albums Skymt and Symfoni will both be released as vinyls, in a combined cover, September 2024.  

with WILD AT ART

Wild at Art create long-durational, site- and situation-specific, inclusive, unstable, exploratory situations. 

I find the Wild at Art-strategies immensely inspiring. Every time I've had to pack up and leave one of the situations that we've built collectively, I've wished that they could just go on, that life and art would always be intertwined like this.

So far I've participated in six of their works: Popludium (2013, in Trondheim's abandoned main post office), Love Letters (Molde Jazz Festival 2013, in an amphitheatre in the woods), Gaven (2013, in Vår Frue open shelter church), Gjestehus (Olavsfest 2015, in Lademoen church), Saturns Hage (2020, Rosendal Theatre), and Saturns Platz (2022, Rosendal Theatre in K•U•K exhibition space).

with TRONDHEIM VOICES

I was one of the founders of this improvising vocal ensemble, 20+ years ago. 
Trondheim Voices has since consisted of a pool of singers, with lineup and roles changing from one project to the other. In addition to being one of the singers, I would occationally have strategic and artistic leadership. I have developed improvisational toolkits and framework for collective musicmaking, and composed music. I also produced the ensemble on three albums. 

Some essensial Trondheim Voices-works I've been part of:
Bingo (2008- with Cirka Teater), On Anodyne (2015- with Jon Balke and Batagraf), Rooms&Rituals (2016- with Asle Karstad), A World of Daughters (2019- by Jon Balke/Yusuf Komunyakaa), Driv (2021 with Cirka Teater), Valen Remixed (2022 for Fartein Valen Festivalen), Trehagen (2022, by Ellen Lindquist and Ane Aas), Circles (2023 with Nils Henrik Asheim), and finally Bedrock (2023- by the ensemble, Asle Karstad, Tone Myskja, Oscar Udbye, Ingrid Skanke Høsøien). 

Jazz quartet Come Shine started as a student band in 1998 and quickly became popular for our loving, yet unruly, interpretations of jazz standards. 

During our active years (1998-2004 and 2012-19) Come Shine released five albums, to wide critical acclaim. Touring we would meet packed venues and dedicated listeners, of all ages. We performed with most of Norway's symphony- wind- and string ensembles, and we staged productions with legends like journalist Knut Borge, poet Jan Erik Vold, artists Jan Eggum, Tuva Syvertsen, Knut Reiersrud and more.

The long term development, the efforts and the artistic achievements of Come Shine have been important elements in my own development as a musician and performer. 

With: Erlend Skomsvoll/Sondre Meisfjord/Håkon Mjåset Johansen

In 2022 Come Shine released a concluding double/triple album, with 25 unique tracks, recorded live in small venues: "Coming Home". 

Apokaluptein means to reveal, to uncover. This was the main commission work for the Vossajazz festival in 2015. I wrote it during autumn of 2014, with the emerging climate and refugee crises in mind. I wrote and composed, from my perspective, about the unbearable human tendency to deny and adapt no matter how bad things turn out. I wrote about acceptance of death, and the fear of not being able to protect your loved ones.

The album recorded in Kulturkirken Jakob in 2016 was a developed version of the original work; more spoken words and poetry had been added. 

With: Hilmar Jensson/Eivind Lønning/Lene Grenager/Sondre Meisfjord/Audun Kleive.

Read in Norwegian: interview about Apokaluptein 

LIVE MARIA BAND

WIBUTEE

1998-2000 with Håkon Kornstad/Per Zanussi/Erlend Skomsvoll/Wetle Holte.
Album "Newborn Thing", Jazzland 1999.

DINGOBATS+

with Eirik Hegdal/Njål Ølnes/Fredrik Ljungqvist/Fredrik Lundin/Øyvind Brække/Thomas T Dahl/Mats Eilertsen/Sverre Gjørvad. Album "Pöck", Bergland 2002.

DENNE LILLE PYTTEN ER ET HAV

Commission work by Sverre Gjørvad, with lyrics by Jan Kjærstad and Peter Handke. With Eirik Hegdal/Øyvind Brække/Ståle Storløkken/Nils-Olav Johansen/Mats Eilertsen/Sverre Gjørvad.
Album of the same name, Curling Legs 2001.

STABAT MATER

Commission work by Kjetil Bjerkestrand for Arve Tellefsen/Øystein Moen/Bjerkestrand himself/me/strings - such as Sara Övinge/Atle Sponberg/TrondheimSolistene.
Album of the same name, KKV 2019.