Category Archives: by Maja in English

What it takes

Tracing Arne Nordheim in the digital archives of the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK) First published in a pamphlet published by Arne Nordheim’s Composer’s Prize 2022, Hild Borchgrevink, editor and translation, with support from Arts Council Norway. The original article in … Continue reading →

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Can music be “true”?

Text written for Nordic Music Days 2019. Festival theme is “truth”. How true is art? Should art be true? The answer lies already in the semantics! The word ‘art’, present in ‘artificial’, even so in Norwegian translation, ‘kunst’ in ‘kunstig’. Thank … Continue reading →

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UN censoring work by Ratkje in New York!

Unbelievable? Perhaps. This image shows the Norwegian Girls’ Choir at the general rehearsal in the UN hall practicing my piece, – right before the authorities stopped the whole thing. Composer Maja Ratkje said she was shocked that the piece had … Continue reading →

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On Henri Bergson and Improvisation

-In my opinion, music is so far from language, it is actually incorrect to say that music is a language of it’s own. It is entirely different by nature. Language is however connected to the way we look at scores, and the academia on music is often so connected to the way music is represented in language/score that sound is often forgotten. Continue reading →

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Nine Prerequisites for Inspiration

A generally curious attitude to life is essential for an inspired existence. There is no contradiction between retaining a childlike or childish curiosity whilst simultaneously acquiring and cultivating knowledge. Continue reading →

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Sound is movement

What is experienced is unique for each person participating in what we create together, in this space, in our shared experience of now! Continue reading →

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Kutt kutt! (NO/EN)

Klipp fra en hverdagsparallellitet, hentet fra et nettintervju, notater til en forelesning og en e-postsamtale. publisert i RETT KOPI, filosofisk tidsskrift, 1/2004

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Listed: 25 Suaves + Maja Solveig Kjelstrup Ratkje

Every Friday, Dusted Magazine publishes a series of music-related lists determined by our favorite artists. This week: 25 Suaves and Maja Solveig Kjelstrup Ratkje. (…) Norwegian singer, improviser, and composer Maja Ratkje has worked with such artists as Merzbow, Jazzkammer … Continue reading →

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Edited from an interview with the Greek zine Strange In Stereo

-I don’t think about emotions when I perform. The associations you get when listening to it afterwards obviously connect to certain emotions, but that is happening in the listener. I try to leave open as much ambiguity as possible. Continue reading →

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This interview was made in The Wire’s issue for March 2003 – edited from the original conversation

-Why not be more surrealistic or irrational? The world becomes boring if you don’t see as much potential in new things as possible. The child’s curious view on the world is easy to lose, it’s however not a contradiction to gain experience. ‘Open-minded’ is not the same as being naive. Continue reading →

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Manifesto

With cyberspeed we stumble around in the universe of today, only to find that to a high degree it is constructed for individuals. Everything is so strangely made to fit that we tend to forget what we wanted to say in the first place. Continue reading →

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