Bergen Centre for Electronic Arts

Do you remember when you last heard a new musical genre for the first time, or a completely new auditory universe, or a surprising combination of sounds you did not expect to fit together? With BEK Studio Sessions, we aim to cultivate this moment. For this version, Peder Niilas Tårnesvik and Elina Waage Mikalsen will be working together in BEK´s sound studio October 4-10.

Elina Waage Mikalsen from Tromsø, Norway, is both Norwegian and Sámi, approaching the identity theme in her works. She creates art and music with a modern expression, departing from coastal Sámi culture and history. Besides being the singer for Blood Forest Family, Waage Mikalsen is a highly versatile and creative young artist experimenting with film, sculpture, drawings, texts and sound/video installation.

Peder Niilas Tårnesvik is a young electronica producer from Bergen, Norway. He is autodidact, and has worked with music and production for the last six years. His project started out as a channel to convey emotions and expressions through electronic contemporary music, and has evolved to become part of the art world, the underground scene via club music, and popular culture. He is also part of the creative collective Vibbefanger. For his album Also This Will Change, he received the 2020 Spellemann Award in Norway´s equivalent to the Grammy Awards in the Electronica category.

ABOUT BEK STUDIO SESSIONS

BEK Studio Sessions is a series of residencies, initiated and organised by Bergen Centre for Electronic Arts. During Studio Sessions, one local and one (inter)national musician/composer of different genre backgrounds inhabit BEK´s sound studio. They are invited by BEK to collaborate and create a new, unique composition of an experimental nature, based on their individual musical background.

BEK Studio Sessions is an injunction to use experimental composing methods and/or instruments, and creates room to experiment in classical and recent genres alike.

For BEK Studio Session #1, we invited two artists both into electronic experiments, looping and sampling: Tom Verbruggen, aka toktek, and Eva Pfitzenmaier. See documentation of their joint performance here.

In the autumn of 2017, we produced a test version of BEK Studio Sessions, called BEK Sound Lab. This session resulted in Carsten Aniksdal and James Welburn performing a new piece at a concert for Prøverommet in Landmark. See documentation of the results here.