Reel / Presentation
4 minutes about me. Self-taught composer working in indie classical and alternative music. I have composed film music and now work with opera and alternative pop. Background as creepy disco wood nymph. Downloadable CV in GoogleDocs.
Opera
Together with esteemed author Maria Kjos Fonn I created the chamber opera “Heroin Chic” . Its first audition in Romania in 2025 was met with a standing ovation of 500 audience members amd the critics called it “an eclectic soundscape” and praised its “strong emotional impact”, “philosophical charge”, “pregnant sonority” and “intelligent orchestration”. One reviewer wrote that the performance “struck the collective psyche”, and another called it a “danse macabre”.
Indie-classical music
Eclissi divina is an orchestral tone poem paralleling Dante’s Paradiso with natural phenomena occurring at sea during a solar eclipse.
From the programme text:
[…] The twilight leads the fish to believe that it is night, and they start swimming upward in a fast motion. The eye of heaven is about to close, the receding light revealing an uncanny beauty. […]
Instrumentation: 2[picc] 2[eh] 2[cbcl] 2 – 2 2 0 0 – Timp 2-Prc – Cel[pf] Harp – str. (I will reorchestrate if needed).
Durata ≈ 9’30
Curious? Reach out and I will be happy to share the score and additional material with you.
Love theme, neo-romantic piece performed by Catharina Chen and other first-class musicians. Read the interview in The Strad or the review in Ballade (in Norwegian). Love Theme was originally composed for the film Hans pluss Liv (NRK – Norwegian National Broadcast), but this new arrangement has been written following input from star violinist Arve Tellefsen and a small ensemble and preformed by violin virtuoso Catharina Chen. In this piece I employ different articulations of the guitar mixed with warm cello and impressionist piano to accompany Chen’s unique timbre and passioned musicianship.
Five Songs of the Bodied is a minimalist song cycle for voice and piano. Originally conceived for contratenor in order to reflect the frailty of the men, and their wish to be remembered as innocent boys, it has been arranged for a mezzo-range voice and piano, performed by Susanna Wolff and recorded by Komlava Sounds.
Five Songs of the Bodied is inspired by stories of men who have committed, witnessed or been victims of (sexual) violence between men, something that is associated with both trauma and shame. The songs are nevertheless abstracted to apply to more general agonizing regret and the existential crisis that may follow – quite relatable emotions and states of mind to many. The song (Nothing) mentions a number of definitions of nothingness, as found in philosophy, mathematics and theology.
(Nothing)
Do you own the key to infinity?
Is there such a thing as a void?
What do they call an empty set?
Nothing. Nothing
Is it God or is it godless?
Antithetical to pure being
What is devoid of properties?
Nothing.
Nothing. Nothing.
Nothing.
Nothing!
Performed by: Susanna Wolff (soprano) and Solveig Sørbø (piano)
Words and music by: Solveig Sørbø
Film by: Mali Galaaen Røsseth
Mixed by: Åse Ava Fredheim
Other music
Sun + Skyman, a kind of jazz with the use of instruments from the Middle East (qanun and yayli tanbur) together with synth, rhodes etc. Acoustic and electronic instruments unite in different tonalities, modes and textures. Link to the audio here.
Om Song, a kind of electronica with a mixture of electronic, acoustic and concrete sounds.
Excerpts from an EP with Om Song, Gnos Mo and remixes by others that I have VJed myself. The entire film can be watched her.
I’m terribly fond of disco and strange humor. Here is an attempt at both with the song and music video Super-Sister.
Sync and film music
The dystopian feelgood song Boogie With Your Bonnie was used in DR’s series “Pleaser”
In 2020 I had the honor of creating the music for the documentary film Hans pluss Liv by Mari Bakke Riise (produced by Margreth Olin / Speranza film). It is a film about lifelong love, and about dementia and death.
Do you want to work with me?
Let’s have a chat.
Solveig Sørbø 