Ørjan Matre

Ørjan Matre (b. 1979) belongs to a generation of Norwegian composers who early in their career explored and adopted the large orchestral format. He studied composition at the Norwegian Academy of Music with Bjørn Kruse, Lasse Thoresen, Olav Anton Thommessen and Henrik Hellstenius.
In 2013 Matre was selected by the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra as their featured composer. The engagement resulted in the large-scale "Konsert for orkester" (2014), in which the opening work "preSage" (2013), is woven together with excerpts from Matres "Violin Concerto" (2014) and expanded into a multimovement work lasting a whole evening. The scale and scope of the work challenges our conception of the “concerto” form – yet another ambitious conceptual project that Matre manages to land safely thanks to his thorough craftsmanship.
Despite the fact that Matre repeatedly puts his compositional skills to the test with finely-wrought textures and risk-taking instrumentation, or by introducing quotations, instruments and playing techniques that challenge established musical preconceptions, his meticulous approach has led to an increasing number of recordings and a growing international audience.