What does it mean to “become” together? What is the word for the opposite of loneliness?

Heida Karine Jóhannesdóttir Mobeck takes over as artistic director of the Trondheim Jazz Orchestra. This evening we will have a first encounter with her first work with the orchestra.

We are? is Heida's main focus as artistic director for the next three years, a living development space for new music, new forms of collaboration and new audience relationships. The project stems from the original power of jazz as a collective, political, improvised and social art form, and questions the expectation of finished works. Instead, the process is highlighted as an artistic method and shared practice.

The core of We are? is listening, to each other, to the places we find ourselves in, and to the time we live in. The work asks open questions: What is here? Where do we stand locally right now? What do we need at this moment? And how can we make something together from what we have here? The music is formed collectively, by being inspired by each other, in the tension between composed structures and improvisation, where initiatives can be taken, responded to, changed and carried forward.

Towards the premiere at Jazzfest on May 7, We are? with the Trondheim Jazz Orchestra will be like a nomadic orchestra. With light and portable instruments. Free to practice and play wherever they go to make music for the concert on May 7. They will visit different landscapes, local places and people, in the city, the forest and by the fjord, and let the music and the process be colored and inspired by the different encounters. We are? will create community and belonging through doing something together. The music "comes into being" in the encounter with everyone who is there through shared listening and presence. The musicians come traveling to Dokkhuset with the music and their moving scenography: costumes and spatial elements that can change character along the way. The plan is to camp on the floor in the middle of the room around a simple, acoustic amplification, with a central microphone solution and surround speakers, to create a circular sound space to be together in. But we'll see how they go on their journey.

This evening we meet Trondheim Jazz Orchestra as a landscape made of music, both groove-based and orchestral, together with lyrics, moods, thoughts and ideas collected along the way. Maybe there are some sheep, crows or other animals in the landscape too? We are? excited about Heida's first project as an orchestra leader, and look forward to a multi-year work with a desire that music, people and places will be created through interaction.

Sara Fjeldvær – vocals, guitar 
Trond Wiger - vocals, rap 
Hans Hulbækmo - percussion, fiddle  
Marianna Sangita - percussion, vocals
Siri Gjære – vocals
Viktor Wilhelmsen - guitar, vocals, joik 
Selma Sophie Tudor Edwards Granly - cello, vocals
Emil Bø – trombone 
Mikkel Amundsen – trumpet 
Guri Simone Øveraas - scenography and costumes, vocals 
Peder Overvik Stuberg – guitar 
Heida Karine Johannesdottir Mobeck - tuba, vocals
Åsne Fossmark - saxophone, vocals