Organ summer in Hallgrímskirkja - Final concert - Nils-Henrik Asheim, organ Stavanger/Norway

Organ Summer in Hallgrímskirkja 2024
Sunday August 25th at 17hrs
Nils-Henrik Asheim, organ Stavanger / Norway
Tickets are available at Hallgrímskirkja and on tix.is
Admission ISK 3.700

Nils Henrik Asheim (b.1960 in Oslo, Norway) is a prolific composer and organist, in addition to being an active pianist, organizer and curator. He has an inclusive and crossdisciplinarity way of working, often across or beyond artistic genres.

Nils Henrik Asheim has written chamber music, orchestral works, pieces for organ, choir, and many others. He has also worked with electronics, with stage- and multimedia art, as well as a variety of site-specific projects. Improvisation is often integrated in his compositional and performative methods; whether manifested through large collaborative projects, or smaller units, risk-taking and the unfinished always become intentional aspects of the result. Throughout all his practice one sense a basic playfulness and pleasure in the sheer tactile and physical sides of sound.

As an organist, Asheim is widely acclaimed for his personal style of improvisation. With influences from jazz, avant-garde, electronic music, folk music, and noise art, he takes the organ to sonic realms not commonly associated with the instrument.

Since 2012 he has been the resident organist at Stavanger Concert Hall, where he has managed to recruit a new, large audience – young and old – around organ-related performances. Through his unique concert series, he is constantly re-inventing the context and pushing the boundaries for how the organ can be played and mediated.

Asheim made his debut as a composer at the early age of 15, at the Young Nordic Music Festival in Helsink, 1975. He was educated at the Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo, studying the organ with Harald Herresthal, piano with Geir Henning Braaten and composition with Olav Anton Thommessen. He also took piano lessons with Yvonne Lefébure in Paris and studied composition with Ton de Leeuw at the Sweelinck Conservatorium, Amsterdam.

During 1988-1991 Asheim was head of the Norwegian Society of Composers. And in 1991 he and his family moved to Stavanger, where he involved himself deeply in the city's cultural life. In 1992-95 he was leader of the programme committee of Stavanger Symphony Orchestra, where he also led various projects and served as a member of the board. He was also head of NyMusikk Stavanger where he presented more than 200 concerts over 20 years.

From 2001 to 2011 he was involved as founding father, board leader and project developer for Tou Scene, a cultural factory in an abandoned brewery complex in the eastern part of Stavanger, now one of Norway's largest independent cultural institutions.

Asheim has been engaged in workshops and in projects for the recruitment of young organists, and as a part-time teacher and later as Professor at the University of Stavanger, Faculty of Performing Arts. He also served as music critic for Stavanger Aftenblad.

Nils Henrik Asheim is represented on many album recordings both as a performer and composer. In 2020, Pelikanen Forlag published his edited anthology Lydkilder - texts around Nils Henrik Asheim's musical practice.