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KSO is scheduled to perform the world premiere during the 2022/23 season. The work will be composed by Jan Erik Mikalsen, the solo oboist is the orchestra's own Marion Walker, and the whole project has been championed by KSO's chief conductor Nathalie Stutzmann. Walker is humbled and grateful that the dream is being realized:

- Great honor

“I’m really looking forward to performing Mikalsen’s new oboe concerto once it’s finished, and it’s a great honor to have it dedicated to me. I’m also incredibly grateful that the orchestra and the Norwegian Cultural Fund are making it possible to premiere the work at Kilden,” says Walker.

Eivind Gullberg Jensen is a Norwegian conductor with an extensive international career. In recent years, Gullberg Jensen has conducted at several leading opera houses, including in Munich, Helsinki, Rome, Zurich, Tokyo, Aix-en-Provence, and Lille. In the spring of 2017, he made his debut at the Vienna State Opera with Giacomo Puccini’s Tosca.

Oboe

Marion Walker has played oboe in the KSO for more than 15 years, and has previously played in all the Norwegian orchestras, as well as orchestras in Sweden, Switzerland and Australia, where she is originally from. She has appeared on a number of recordings and has an upcoming solo album release on the LAWO label.

Jan Erik Michaelsen has composed a number of commissioned works for the Oslo Philharmonic, the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, and KORK, to name a few. In 2014, the work *Parts II for Orchestra* was one of four finalists in the Toru Takemitsu Composition Award, and that same year it won Tono’s Edvard Prize for best contemporary music. The work *Songr for Orchestra* won the International Rostrum of Composers in 2015 and was broadcast in over 30 countries worldwide.

Won the critics' prize

- "This is very good news for KSO and the other parties involved. We know what a successful commission can mean for the orchestra, and this is something we can all look forward to," says KSO Director Geir Rebbestad.

Together with Rolf Gupta and conductor Peter Szilvay, KSO won the Critics' Award for best concert in 2019, for the commissioned work The Song of the Earth.