It actually was a dark and stormy night - and the day hadn't been that great either. I was about 19 years old, attending the State Academy of Music in Oslo. I had a half-hour train ride to get home. If I missed the second to the last train, I would face a long wait and a short night. What do you do in Oslo when you miss your train? When the weather is nice, and during day-time, there are many happy and healthy diversions, I'm sure, but on the gloomiest of fall nights, wi

Many years ago, I was performing in a concert where a person of great authority was the featured soloist. The concert was not a success, and I was very surprised when the soloist later asked for my opinion on the performance. What could I possibly say that would not offend? At the age of eighteen I was an even worse liar than I am today. I mumbled and stalled - eventually coming up with the more or less true statement that I didn't really care so much for the piece that h

I was first introduced to Haydn's Divertimento a Tre when my teacher - Aksel Strøm - performed it on a faculty recital at the youth orchestra festival where I was a student in the mid-eighties. As I was only a teenager, I didn't know exactly how impressive this performance was. Aksel joked around afterwards about how the piece covered a full four octaves (and if I remember correctly, there wasn't even one note missed..), but as he was in the habit of demonstrating even a fu