Paul Hindemith studied violin at the Dr Hoch's Konservatorium of Frankfurt and played from 1915 to 1923 in the Frankfurt opera. From 1921 to 1929 he played viola in the Amar Quarter, where he was advocate for contemporary music. Throughout the years, he held multiple positions as teachers, but he remained most popular as a violist. During the Second Worldwar he fleed to the USA and was given the American nationality in 1948, Later, he returned to Europe to teach at the university of Zürich.
His use rhythm, called "Motorik" by himself (a combination of Motor and Musik) is piercing, and at times even tormenting. It echoes the arrival of industralisation and the motor, as Hindemith opposes any form of sentimentality, psychology or personality. This way, Hinemith created shrill, neoclassicistic music (Gebrauchsmusik, music with a social or political aim). His body of works is quite extensive, with more than 100 compositions in all kinds of genres. Even though he was an advocate of contemporary music, he never felt affiliated with dodecaphony. He wrote several theoretic treatises, among which his Unterweisung im Tonsatz from 1937 in which Hindemith offers several systems in which the tension between intervals, harmony and melody is analysed and elevated into a compositional technique.

KJELL HABBESTAD (b. 1955) is Professor of Music Theory and Composition at the Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo, of which he is a graduate in church music and composition. His catalog of works includes 97 opuses including dramatic works (operas, oratorios), orchestral works, solo instrument concertos, chamber works for various combinations of instruments, works for organ and piano, and a large number choral works.

Habbestad’s larger works include The Moster Pageant, which has been performed annually in an amphitheater at Moster, Norway (on the island of Bømlo), since 1984; the oratorios One Night on Earth (1983) and Adam and Eve (2008); the operas Hans Egede’s Night (1995) and Nenia— in Memory of Fartein Valen (2014), all with texts by Paal-Helge Haugen. Also worthy of mention are the opera Karlstad 1905 — A Page in the History of Civilization (2016), and the musical The Count of Monte Cristo (2011), both with librettos by the composer.