Concerto for Orchestra was commissioned by Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra and premiered in 2014 with Peter Szilvay as conductor and Peter Herresthal as violin soloist. The performance marked the end of Orjan Matre’s engagement as the season’s featured composer. Concerto for Orchestra is, as the title implies, a work for orchestra, but it is also a work about the orchestra.

For the first performance of this work Matre approached the concerto form as a physical and social space. The recording attempts to communicate something of this experience via the medium of recorded album by using audience sound from Oslo Concert Hall and a recording of Arne Nordheim’s iconic pre-concert bell composition from the same hall.

Orjan Matre (b. 1979) studied composition at the Norwegian Academy of Music with Bjorn Kruse, Lasse Thoresen, Olav Anton Thommessen and Henrik Hellstenius. Matre was composer-in-residence with Kristiansand Symphony Orchestra for the 2006-2007 season, and he was Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra’s featured composer for its 2013-2014 season.

He has distinguished himself as a distinct voice in Norwegian music and has, in a short time, been awarded high-profile commissions from leading musicians, ensembles and orchestras.