Spente før urfremføringen til torsdag

Five years have passed since the idea was conceived. On Thursday, May 25, the world premiere of Jan Erik Mikalsen’s “Obokonsert” will take place, featuring the orchestra’s own Marion Walker as soloist and Eivind Gullberg Jensen as conductor.

The premiere will be held during the “Norsk på Norsk” concert in konsertsalen Thursday. The days leading up to the performance are important for the main participants.

– “I’m really looking forward to it, and I’m always excited to see if the orchestra and the audience will like the piece. It’s being recorded for release this week, so that might make it even more exciting,” says composer Jan Erik Mikalsen.

I accepted

Ensemble Ernst, of which Marion Walker is a member, premiered his work *Les Poèmes* in 2018, and following that, it became clear that he would compose a new oboe concerto for Walker. The Kristiansand Symphony Orchestra (KSO) agreed to premiere the work. And that’s happening this week.

Marion Walker works as a musician with the KSO. As a soloist, she is naturally looking forward to Thursday’s concert.

– It’s a special feeling to be a soloist. You become the center of attention, like when you give a speech at a party. It’s an important job; you’re conveying an important story to the audience—a story you’ve been working on for a long time on your own, and now you finally get to tell it, explains Walker.

The big picture and the details

She says that the last few days of rehearsals have been intense, focusing on both the big picture and the details.

– We’re getting to know the piece, identifying its most distinctive moments, and polishing them so they’ll make an impression. It’s an exciting process where the conductor, composer, and soloist may all have different expectations going in, and it’s only in the final days that we reach an agreement—both on how to interpret the broad strokes and on all the details,” explains the soloist.

Energy

She looks forward to having well-known colleagues supporting her.

– “Performing this with the orchestra behind me gives me extra energy and confidence! I can feel the energy from everyone in the orchestra, from the conductor, and not least from the audience, whose energy radiates toward me. We’re all on the same team and sharing the same experience,” she explains.

In addition to Obokonsert (2022) by Jan Erik Mikalsen, the audience on Thursday will experience Johan Svendsen’s prelude to Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson’s play Sigurd Slembe (1871), as well as Svendsen’s Symphony No. 1 (1865–66). The evening’s conductor is Eivind Gullberg Jensen.