Appendix: 

From my notes for the concert and artist talk at MoMA: 

I have written music from different perspectives on the Red Studio, based on my artistic research project transformative reflections, where I work on translating and getting inspiration from visual art to music. I work with 4 main categories of composing, that can flow into each other. The methods are intuitive, element analytical, concrete and idea analytical.

The inspiration I especially have taken from painting, is to focus more on what I see as equivalent to colors and spatiality in the music, and working with exploring this, even though there is also a storyline present at times.

Overall, I feel the Red Studio inspires to explore and expand ideas and look for new directions rooted in where I come from, and maybe first and foremost trust the artistic instinct and sensibility into unknown land.

I have aimed to both experience and understand the painting as much as possible, and have the music being close to that. There is also a strong element of making music that lives on its own premises, with the foundation in the inspiration from the Red Studio, and hopefully reflecting back on the painting.

So probably sometimes, you will find a slightly direct connection between composition, improvisation, and the visual image, and other times it will be more of an underlying concept, philosophy, idea, or mood, that hopefully still makes sense to you.

The inspiration I especially have taken from the Red Studio, is from the colors and sense of space, which I have translated into harmonic and rhythmic ideas in the music, with a sometimes melodic storyline present, representing the balance between the figurative and abstract.

I find there is both a meditative inspiration and a dramatic feeling in the Red Studio.

More on the methods and the pieces you will hear:

in the intuitive category, I have been sensing and absorbing the painting as much as I could, and written music from that state of mind and atmosphere. A daily process of looking at a representation of the painting and improvising and writing what my intuition informs me.

In the element analytical category, I have chosen some aspects from the Red Studio and translated these to music elements and used these as foundation for the composition. For example the underlying blue, yellow ochre and pink and the final red on top of these, translated to 3 underlying tonal centers, ending in a fourth and final.

I combine this with a melodic and intervallic representation of the different lines and figures in the painting. I chose left hand intervals giving most possible harmonic color, and a lot of dimished chords, which have a lot of potential energy but not only one defined direction.

Finally have the aspect of four squares that have different undertones in mind, and the division by the arm-less clock in the middle.

where the final center only solidifies in the end, translating the color circle to an music circle of fifths)

combined with anintervallic approach  on one hand representing squares and angles, and on the other hand a more stepwise flow.)

In the concrete category, I have made a system for all colors in the artworks in the Red Studio translated to intervals using the color circle and the circle of fifths.

I have strictly processed and placed these sounds rhythmically in the music correlating to where they are placed in relation to the clock in the middle.

I have included a short meditative piece where I have placed the painting on sheet music and read it as such with the objects as musical notes.

in the idea analytical category which also sums up the proces, I have

-reworked one of my previous pieces “Trees” based on a fundamental pentatonic scale, as a representation of the earthyness, drama and trance in the red color, and also pointing to the significance of the landscape painting in the Red Studio.

-worked with the idea of exploring the suspended time, 2 and 3 -dimensionality and figure ground relationships, translated into both rhythmic and harmonic perspectives.

-with inspiration from composer Morton Feldmans music for Rothkos monochromatic paintings, which as I understand it, is very much inspired by the Red Studio.

-the idea of reversing the figure-ground relationship.

-working with the four squares of the painting, and the numbers of 12, 4, 3 and 2 that are present in a number of ways.

-the relations, connections and repetitions in the figures, objects and subjects in the painting.

-not least the idea of “It has not turned out the way I originally imagined. I like it, but I don’t quite understand it; I don’t know why I painted it precisely the way I did”, which I relate to as letting the intuitive ideas guide the music, and a philosophy of playing what my aural imagination tells me.

-the phrasing and dynamics and the shaping in the improvisations, I relate to brushstrokes markmaking almost nonchalant yet very precise