Café de Concert

Grand opening on April 18th!!

2012-01-19T23:20:00.002+01:00

Yo guys! Kolstad will be opening a new place for Café de Concert - 150 m2 right next to the Astrup Fernley Museum in Oslo (Tjuvholmen) on April 18th at 8 pm. Save the date, it will be a blast! BMW will be exhibiting a new car every month inside Café de Concert and there will be lots of cool photo and painting ehxibitions in HUGE dimensions in addition to lots of fun concerts. And yeah - Kolstad be hanging on the walls on the opening, of course :D

Exhibition with Meriliis Rinne

2011-12-12T18:11:00.008+01:00

Café de Concert had the honor of introducing the wonderful artist painter Meriliis Rinne in Norway for the first time! With her came also her supercool pr agent Kelli Tudeberg. Kolstad performed some of his newest works for piano solo...and then the party started :) Was a full house! Feel free to pop in and take a look at the supercool exhibition, the paintings will blow you away:) Check out Merilii´s website here.

Sponsor Concert for BMW Fornebu Bilia

2011-12-12T18:05:00.003+01:00

Kolibri Musikkakademi

2011-11-16T15:40:00.002+01:00

Hi, gus! Would just like to make you aware of my good friend and wonderful pianist Andrijana Vuckovic´s music academy for up and coming youngsters! Andrijana has such an enthusiatic way of teaching that all of her studens blossom in the split of a second!
Got a kid or know somebody that´s keen on starting to lern the piano in Oslo? Tell her I said hi;) All the best, Aksel :)

Take a look at Kolibri Musikkakademi´s video presentation HERE

Andrijana Vuckovic, pianist and piano teacher
email: post@kolibrimusikkakademi.no
phone: +47 96 88 03 64
www.kolibrimusikkakademi.no

Check out our new promo teaser!

2011-10-23T19:16:00.003+02:00

Promoteaser

Le voilà!

2011-10-18T15:56:00.003+02:00

Meriliis Rinne - Yet another great artist from Tallinn

2011-09-26T13:58:00.004+02:00

CHECK IT OUT!!!! www.meruline.com Café de Concert loves this! Will make an exhibition with Meriliis in Oslo in near future.

Awsome Café de Concert festival 2011

2011-09-11T21:43:00.011+02:00

What a supercool festival we just finished tonight with the magnificant Trio Valentin playing Beethoven and Ravel like Greek Gods! Had a couple of funky concerts in Fredrikstad and Halden also

before hitting it off in Oslo - with a flashy style...

Thank you, everybody, for a wonderful festival at Tjuvholmen - the artistic district of Oslo! Here are some photos from a couple of the concerts!

Best festival audience 2011 goes to Berit and Berit :)

Rest of the photos by Patrick Nicanor Oldenborg

Café de Concert festival 2011

2011-08-09T16:45:00.000+02:00

Time to get funky, people....

St.Hans-concerts in Oslo and Fredrikstad on June 23rd

2011-07-05T14:52:00.006+02:00

First we did a cool concert at Fredrikstad Hospital!

Then an outdoor concert outside Café de Concert in Oslo. Concertmaster Jonas Båtstrand is allways a very popular musician amongst the young girls!

And of course, a little St.Hans-party...

...for all ages :)

Café de Concert´s Fredrikstad Chamber Orchestra in Sweden

2011-07-04T21:49:00.005+02:00

@ Radio Swedish Radio P4 with Stenungsund´s cheif of tourism Björn Johnson (left) and Robert "Gretchen" Aug (right)

After performing at the Swedish Chamermusic Festival in Stenungsund last week Kolstad performed on Swedish national radio (P4) and made Stenungsund beat the big city of Göteborg in a competition in between the two cities. Read more about it here "Världspianist stod upp för Stenungsund - skickade ut Göteborg i kvartsfinalen"
http://sverigesradio.se/sida/gruppsida.aspx?programid=4168&grupp=15461

Kolstad felt honored as he presented Café de Concert´s wonderful Fredrikstad Chamer Orchestra for the Swedish audience at the opening concert where Jonas Båtstrand led them through Bartok´s 6 Rumanian Folkdances, Mendelssohn violin concert in d minor (with Båtstrand as soloist) and Tchaikovskij´s String Serenade. Båtstrand and the rest of the orchestra got magnificant critics!! Kolstad also world premiered his newest piece for piano solo during that concert, "L´amour invisible". Full house and a very enthusiastic audience made the concert quite unforgettable for all of the musicians. The day after Kolstad had his solo concert at the same festival. Swedish press (Göteborgsposten) wrote this:

"Kolstad is often called to be the New Norwegian Victor Borge. I would rather call him the Franz Liszt of today"

PS: Fredrikstad Chamber Orchestra all fit in Café de Concert :D

Firma-event på Café de Concert

2011-06-14T16:38:00.010+02:00

Gjør noe litt annerledes og originalt for de ansatte i firmaet ditt. Det verdensomspennende konseptet Café de Concert har base på Tjuvholmen i Oslo og tilbyr en ekslusiv konsert for ditt firma med Carnegie Hall-debutanten Aksel Kolstad. Pianisten, komponisten og humoristen har trukket fulle hus verden over med sine klassiske konserter ispedd humor og piano-virtuoseri. Nå kan dere oppleve ham i sitt eget konsert-galleri, med utsikt over havet. Café de Concert serverer champagne og legendariske pølser og lomper fra Kolstads hjemby, Fredrikstad. Og la oss nå ikke glemme minibasket-turnering etter konserten!

Søk på Aksel Kolstad på YouTube og ta en titt ;)
Kontakt:
Aksel Kolstad - aksel.kolstad@cafedeconcert.no mob 91 83 66 92

Café de Concert Dinner

2011-05-13T18:41:00.008+02:00

9 mai kl. 18 bød Café de Concert på sin legendariske "Café de Concert Dinner". Dette er noe du ikke bør gå glipp av!

45 min klassisk konsert med påfølgende middag.

Forrett
Sitronmarinert grønn asparges med creme fraiche og lakserogn
Kyllingfilet a la tonnato, med tunfisk og kapersmajones

Hovedrett
Oksefiletrulade med glassnudler
Scampi og kamskjell marinert med chili
Tatakistekt salmalaks med wasabipurre
Sweet and sour cole slow-salat Ananas-kiwi-jordbær

Dessert
Små Panna Cotta med bringebærcoulis Hvit og mørk sjokolademousse med passionsfrukt

Champagne/vin/mineralvann inkludert

PS: Vi har også Café de Concert Vorspiel- og Lunch-meny i tillegg til Pølse og Champagne-menyen vår!
Kontakt Aksel Kolstad for reservasjon: aksel.kolstad@cafedeconcert.no mob 91 83 66 92

Neighbour-concert

2011-04-28T18:42:00.010+02:00

Since we just moved in to this fantastic neigbourhood in February we figured it would be cool to invite our neighbours to a mini-concert yesterday with a small party afterwords :) And so we did :)

Russian, Lithuanian, Canadian, South-Korean and Norwegian people embraced the concert with, no big surprise, the wonderful Trio Valentin :) And later that evening the new Norwegian Ole Bull, Bjarne Magnus Jensen, came and performed a showpiece for us!

Trio Valentin @ Café de Concert

2011-04-28T15:41:00.012+02:00

All photos: Amanda O. Berg

Trio Valentin - a young prize winning pianotrio from The Norwegian Academy of Music had their first concert at Café de Concert on Apri 15th performing Brahms and Ravel pianotrios in addition to the Franck sonata for violin and piano. Oda Hilde, violin
Ivan Valentin, cello and Ole Christian Haagenrud, piano, performed like an already well experienced trio and rocked our crib like never before! Café de Concert is now embraceing this trio with the intention of shipping them to NYC and other cool cities around the globe for other great performances. Stay tuned, don´t miss their next performance at Café de Concert :)

Preparation backstage....

Kolstad just had to give them a funky introduction;)

Then, the party started :)

Kolstad´s wonderful mum, allways in charge of Øyvind Karlsen pløser!

And yes, then it was time for the minibasketball-tournament :D

LIV GLACER (left), one of Norway´s greatest pianists of all time, and her wonderful sister!!

The Aksel Kolstad Show

2011-03-07T11:44:00.010+01:00

After touring once around the world with The Aksel Kolstad Show, Kolstad decided to come back to the roots where the show was created, in Oslo, one year ago this month!

Mother of Aksel, Kirsti Kolstad, is in carge of the wiener´s which are beeing served each concert!

Father of Aksel, Leon Hazen, chillin´ before the concert - makeing sure his son is ready Freddy, before "jump ball"

And after the concert everybody got Øyvind Karlsen wiener´s, champagne and participated in the traditional Café de Concert shoot-out and slam dunk minibasketball tournament! It was a wiiild ride! Check out our fanpage on facebook to see mindblowing videos!!

And SOMEBODY had a bit tooo heavy muscles so the hoop broke :D Scotch-tape to the resque!!

Gallery Café de Concert Oslo - grand slam opening

2011-02-20T16:55:00.016+01:00

BMW cars, red carpet, champagne, celebreties, wiener sausages and classical music = Gallery Café de Concert!
We started off with a mini concert for all of our wonderful sponsors and partners at 7 pm. Musikk-Huset A/S, Steinway and Sons, BMW, Marthinussen Piano og Musikksenter, Geneva, Next Oslo, Øyvind Karlsen pølser CopyCat and "Basketballstore"... thank you so much for makeing this possible! Oda Hilde, Ivan Valentin and Ole-Christian Haagenrud gave us a sparkling taste of Grieg and Mendelssohn´s trios in c minor, "intermezzoed" by Kolstad performing his Harlequin Variations over a theme by Bach.

And at 8 pm the rest of the Café de Concert-groupies joined the party :)

"stay tuned, more photos from the party will be posted tonight...."

And let´s not forget the legendary mini-basketball tournament!!

"stay tuned, more photos from the tournamet will be posted tonight...."

So.....

Come on inside Gallery Café de Concert at Tjuvholmen in Oslo!
Take a look at our photo and paiting exhibitions, try out some of our great instruments, enjoy the chamber music concerts in the evenings, stay tuned on www.cafedeconcert.no

Buy some food from Wayne´s Coffee or Edge Restaurant next door - or just bring something from your own refridgerator, work online, have your meetings here, get to know new compositions by young Norwegian composers in our little library or just chill out and relax :)

Book Café de Concert for private parties, or book a concert from us to where ever you´d like to have it. We´ll custumize everything you want. Café de Concert is the biggest impressario in the northern part of Europe with great young and established artists in world class.

And also - we got the best wiener sausages in the world - "Øyvind Karlsen pølser"
Mon-Fri 4-8 pm! Welcome to your own, urban living-room! Let´s dance !! :)

Café de Concert´s new crib in Oslo

2011-02-04T02:28:00.009+01:00

In september 2009 we opened up the world´s first classical concert café - with concerts every day, sometimes even twice a day.
We proved to the world that we were able to do it. And now - we are doing something new. On February 18th we are opening the Café de Concert Gallery. A flag ship store for Café de Concert, with a brand new style. Two rooms faceing the wonderful seaside of Tjuvholmen in Oslo will be decorated into living-rooms with vintage "old school" furniture, with two grand pianos in each room. Back to the roots, Café de Concert is takeing you back to school, back to doing chamber music concerts where they first were held, in chambers, in living-rooms! And as you can see, Mr. Kolstad is very happy about this! (Jesus, he looks like he just recieved his first baby!!)

The front room will be a showroom where all the concerts will be held. Not as many as two each day, a little more exclusive this time - maybe a couple each month. The second room will be an "atelier", where composers, ensembles and other artists can work and experiment. So now we got an even better window to show the world what goes on in our minds, dear collegues. Let´s show them - papa´s got a brand new style! Don´t miss the grand opening, friends! Red carpet, champagne, BMW-cars, stars from the music industry performing, glam and lots of fun! Litimed invitations, so please email aksel.kolstad@cafedeconcert.no for reservations asap!

We have been blessed with a lot of sponsors, especially thank´s to the publisher Musikk-Huset A/S, we were able to seal this deal with Tjuvholmen KS, who gave us an extremely sweet deal. Steinway is allways in the paint with us, lending us yet again a fabulous grand piano. A lot of other great and exiting new sponsors have also trooped together and given Café de Concert the ultimate giant leap into makeing history once again. Tom Wilhelmsen Stiftelse, BMW, Geneva, Øyvind Karlsen and Bård and Mona Wendelborg.

Today it is 2 weeks before the grand opening. A lot has to be done before that, but I´d like to show you photos of the empty space as it is right now, and then show you the result in two weeks :)

Christmas gig for Statsbygg in Oslo

2010-12-15T22:51:00.008+01:00

Café de Concert´s last gig for this year was at Statsbygg´s Christmas lunch today. Statsbygg built the fabulastic opera in Oslo, so it was very cool to perform for them at the supercool concert venue - the Sonja Hennie ball room at Oslo Plaza, for 400 spectators. Aksel and Jonas Båtstrand had a kick ass party on stage in between performing Halvorsen, Mozart and Beethoven.

From all of us, to all of you - a merry merry, Christmas!!

Café de Concert in New York

2010-12-09T15:52:00.006+01:00

As the nights are getting colder and winter is catching up in New York City - Caffe Vivaldi is heating up, especially with a full house from Café de Concert! As we were standing outside watching in, we were wondering.... where can we sit? There were absolutely no open tables. Luxurious problem for the crew:)

The concert on Tuesday November 23rd had an extraodrinary energy - Rebekah Heller, bassoon, was on fire!

Starting off with a special piece for bassoon and cello (Amanda Gookin), written by Mozart, the audience got introduced to the wonderful music those two instruments can produce in a duo. As the concert continued, Heller and Gookin was joined by Jessie Mongommery, violin, and Nick Revel, viola. As a string quartet the musicians continued with Krommer and Devienne. The concert evening was an amazing experience, and those who were at Café de Concert for their first time said they would definitely come again!

Thank you all for coming, and we hope to see you again on our next concert on December 14th.

Askim, lovely Askim

2010-11-08T19:30:00.002+01:00

Every time Café de Concert performs in Askim, it´s a full house. And not only that, it´s a full house with wonderful people in the audience. Gotta love that city! Aksel flew straight in from New York and performed in Askim the day after he landed in Oslo. Hm, wonder why all of the pieces he played had such slow tempos :D

Packed at Caffe Vivali

2010-10-09T07:52:00.011+02:00

Tonight was a super night at Caffe Vivaldi, New York! Aksel performed with the magnificant Curtis Stewart and Amanda Gookin. Kicked the party off with Bartok´s 6 Rumanian dances, the continued with Schumann´s Fantasiestück before wrapping up with the piano trio by Debussy which he wrote when he was 18, just a teenager! The crowd at Vivaldi was great as usual, and after Debussy - the audience turned in to a rock concert-audience! Rock on!!

And then....the party began....!

CdC training program

2010-09-27T20:21:00.000+02:00

Yo!! Remember me? I hope so, I am your conscience :-) Especially when it comes to physical activity and that upright posture. My name is still Sondre and I am very proud to be the one person Aksel trust in this matter. I hope you will learn to trust me too.

This months exercise: Alternated front raises with rubber band

Purpose: strengthening and conditioning the muscles keeping your
scapulae in the right place.

How:
1) Fasten the rubberband in a doorknob. Stand upright holding your hands relaxed beside you.
2) Hold the handles firmly lift a straight arm(the right one) up and over your head. Simultaneously you pull the left arm beackwards beside you. Both arms pressing backwards, but one arm in the air and the other beside your hip.
3) Hold for a brief second then calmly bring your arms forward again.
4) Repeat but changing upper and lower arms.

How much: 2 series and 12-20 repetitions (you should feel a light
burning sensation in your muscles)

How often: 1-2 times pr week. Not the same day as important concerts as you may feel fatigued in your upper back before the concert is over. Why: Your upper back muscles keep your posture perfect for as long as they can. If they are out of shape they fatigue early giving you pain and bad posture. Bad posture will give back- and neck problems over time.

This months stretch: Chest, pectoralis minor

Purpose: releasing tension and lengthening the small pectoral muscle

How:
1) Stand in a doorway with your left forearm and elbow touching the doorframe
2) Take a small step forward until you feel the stretch in your chest. Then lean forward a bit more.
3) Try to elevate your shoulder, this would give you a stretching feeling in the lower part of your chest, just next to your armpit.
3) Hold this stretch for 20-30 seconds, then push against the door frame with your elbows for 5 seconds. Relax and move forward for another inch or two. This will really stretch and you hold this for 20-30 seconds before you slowly release the pressure and bring your arm down. Now repeat with the right arm.

How much: 2 times as described above with 1-2 minutes rest in between.

How often: 1-2 times pr week. Especially after concerts and long lasting
practices.

Why: Your small chest muscle(pectoralis minor) is a quite strong muscle and will shorten fast if not stretched regurarily. And especially if you tend to lean on your elbows during your desk work.

These two exercises combined with the previous ones will keep your posture straight and hopefully keeping you away from pain. But hey - no pain, no game! Put your game face on, folks - and work that boty!!

Caffe Vivaldi, New York

2010-09-27T13:46:00.005+02:00

On Thursday September 9th, Caffe Vivaldi (New York) was once again filled with entertainment, laughter and beautiful music. On stage this time were Nathaniel LaNasa and Illya Filshtinskiy, piano, Nick Revel, viola and Curtis Stewart, violin. These funky musicians gave us an enjoyable concert with music by Milhaud, Pleyel and Debussy.

They filled Caffe Vivaldi with a great atmosphere, humour, and performed an outstanding concert where they brought the audience all the way from California, through Wisconsin, to the European cities, Bruxel and Paris (performed through La Californienne, The Wisconsonian, La Bruxelloise and La Pariesienne). Caffe Vivaldi was packed with people! C u next time :)

Next concert is on October 8th @ 9p.m. starring Curtis Stewart, Amanda Gookin and Aksel Kolstad!

Concert on a bridge in Fredrikstad

2010-09-13T22:13:00.006+02:00

Last saturday Kolstad wanted to get a little attention about the upcoming Café de Concert-festival in Fredrikstad. I guess he managed just that.... Together with violinist and concert meister of Fredrikstad Chamber Orchestra, Jonas Båtstrand, Kolstad made Beethoven sound all over Fredrikstad from the pedestrian bridge down town.

Young talents at NCC

2010-09-13T13:39:00.007+02:00

Last sunday Café de Concert had a season opening at its Nordic Chamber Music Center (Elingaard manor in Fredriktad, Norway). This time we invited young musicians which all were prize winners in the previous national competition for young, classical musicians in Norway. Pianists Eirik Haug Stømner and Christoffer Behn Stensrud, saxofonist Elise Setterberg and flutist Kristin Hammerseth all gave an outstanding performance for a very impressed crowd at the manor. The thing that impressed the most, however, was how these young musicians verbally entertained the audience with great skills! Café de Concert likes this very much! Keep on stayin´cool, youngsters, you are our laid back future!

Season Opening in New York

2010-09-04T23:38:00.004+02:00

Caffe Vivaldi,New York, was once again crowded with an amazing audience while the music of Mozart, Bach, and Haydn filled the room with passion. On stage were Curtis Stewart and Jessie Montgomery on violins, NIck Revel on viola and Amanda Gookin playing cello. Joshua Rubin, on clarinet, joined as a guest and made this Saturday night feel very special. Even the people walking outside on the street could not help to stop and look through the windows while the music sang through the keyhole. It was such an amazing and successful concert that managed to bring back classical music to the people of New York once again. Thank you all for coming, c u next time:) Bravo Café de Concert New York-team for produceing your first series in the big apple!

CdC´s Health-program / yoga

2010-07-23T10:04:00.007+02:00

Hello, everybody:)

My name is Elizabeth Lyseng, and like most yoga teachers I'm a fan of communicating the value of yoga to as many people as possible. I have a bit of the same relationship to classical yoga as “force of nature” Aksel Kolstad has to classical music: a strong desire to bring it home to people. The tradition that I practice and teach is classical yoga, which is a direct continuation of Swami Satyananda’s understanding of yoga.

Aksel has invited me to write a monthly post on CDC’s blog, with a particular focus on yoga for musicians, and I am very happy to accept! Yoga is a far-reaching topic, and, of course, yoga is for everyone! The way yoga is being portrayed in today’s media, it may seem a little daunting for some. However yoga does not prescribe a certain style of clothing, or what a yogi should or should not practice. Yoga is about taking care of one's body and mind, based on each person’s own experience and the understanding gained through the practice of yoga. Yoga is an ancient science of the body, deriving from a traditional Eastern philosophy where taking care of the whole body is at the core. With the whole body is meant that the physical body is not seen as separate from the mental, emotional, and spiritual aspects of man. From this holistic viewpoint, an imbalance in the mental, emotional or prana related areas (prana being the energy currents in the body) can manifest as stress in the physical body's weakest organ, or other physically weak areas in the muscles and skeleton. In this first presentation I have chosen to give a general idea of the scope and potential of yoga based on some important truths:

Physical exercise strengthens your body and releases tension
Breathing exercises focus the mind
Relaxation techniques calm the mind and body
Mantras and recitations calm the emotions
Meditation balances the soul

Yoga gives you a stronger and more supple body, increases your ability to concentrate and strengthens your mind. Asanas (physical exercises) and Pranayama (breathing exercises) provide specific stimuli and effects on the organs, joints and muscles. Through relaxation and meditation you can release tension and bad energy, providing more room for reflection, and energy to cope with stressful situations.

Breathing (Pranayama) is one of the most vital processes in the body. The breath affects the activity of every cell in the body, and most important of all, breath has an intimate connection with the activity in the brain. Many people use only a limited portion of their lung capacity. Through Pranayama exercises you can become aware of the full potential of your breathing, and how to use your breath.

Meditation has a surprisingly positive impact on the functions of the body. Through meditation you can get a stronger and more flexible body, which many people believe can only be achieved through strenuous physical exercises. By sitting still in deep concentration over an extended period, energy is focused in the body and mind. Meanwhile, joints and muscles all the way in to the skeleton are strengthened when the body is kept in one position over time. Meditation gives mental power and strength to the mind, so that your body relaxes, lets go of muscle tension, and uses less energy on holding itself up. Through regular meditation practice you will be able to meditate for longer and longer periods without effort.
Relaxation may be practiced in short or long sessions. Through relaxation your body achieves a state that balances between wakefulness and sleep. In this state the skeleton and muscles are invited to accept the favours of gravity and release the body’s full weight onto the floor. Thereby the body lets go of all tensions and quickly achieves a rested state. At the same time the mind releases unnecessary tension, is "reset", and receives a renewal of energy. Relaxation can be practiced anywhere from 5 -10 minutes up to an hour or longer, with immediate effect on the body and mind. Through regular relaxation practice with a yoga teacher you can learn to master shorter sessions of relaxation for self-practice.

Don´t hesitate to contact me for further information. My contact info can be found on the Café de Concert website.
All the best, Elizabeth Lyseng

Unforgettable concert at Nano, Tallin

2010-07-08T13:17:00.005+02:00

Despite the fact that the football semifinals between Spain and Germany was going on at the same time as the concert, over 100 people found their way to the wonderful backyard of Nano - and stayed long in to the night after the concert as well.
Kristina, Levi-Danel and Aksel got tons of bravo and bravissimo´s after their last spitfire-pice by Schubert.
Tradition has been made, Nano is Café de Concert´s summer residence in Tallin! Looking forward to see you all there next time!

First Café de Concert-concert in Tallin

2010-07-07T13:42:00.006+02:00

Our producers in Estonia, Pille Lille Music Foundation, chose "Museum" - one of several wonderful venues of the Estonian company the "Sparkling Group" - as our first pick. And MAN, was that a success! The event coordinator Helen Löhmus made sure of a full house, and already after the first half the musicians were going on and off the stage several times due to the very enthusiastic audience. On the program was Mozart, Beethoven, Grieg and Schubert. Kristina Kriit and Levi-Danel Mägila totally kicked ass playng with sparkling eyes, which made the "Sparkling Group" glitter in the audience. And once Aksel saw the concert was beeing flimed, well - you know unstoppable Aksel;)

CdC´s Health-program / training

2010-06-10T06:08:00.003+02:00

Artistic Director Aksel Kolstad (photo) is very proud to present his very good friend from from his childhood neighbourhood
as Café de Concerts personal trainer in the concepts new health program for musicians. Sondre Bjerke is a fitness instructor and has won several prestigious medals for his great skills and muscle performance

-

Hello all people of advanced musical creation,

My name is Sondre. Almost everyone who talks english calls me Sondra, a female name. I am a man, 33years of age, like to fish, but almost never get the time....oh well...you can read more about that in my profile on the Café de Concert website.

I have worked as a personal trainer for a while now and have many ideas on how to help musicians to a better performing physique. I can almost see now that many of you reading this have a ? over your head. Musicians and physical development are closely correlated, as hairdressers or truckdrivers. We all need a physique that can handle what we want to do. I hate to break it to you, but here goes: No, your body will not develop ideally to what you do even if you do it a lot. When a body for several hours a week is exposed to sitting in front of a piano, holding a violin with one arm and a chin, holding a piccoloflute to the side and so on, it will develop muscle tension and sore muscles.
Muscle tension, muscle soreness and shortening of muscles will in time bring pain and in worst case, injury.

I know you love your instrument. I know you love to play on it many hours a day. I admire and eny you for haveing such a passion about music, buit please listen to me, because my passion is exercise and nutrition. I love to explain and teach other people how they can avoid injuries and muscle soreness. I love to talk about training and how to get results in every level. It doesn't matter how great you physique is, it is all about where you are and where you are going. I will help you along the way starting today! Every month I will come up with the exercise and the stretch of the month.

This months exercise: Seated row with rubberband

Purpose: strengthening and conditioning the muscles in your upper back and rear deltoids(shoulders)
How:
1) Fasten the rubberband under your feet in front of you sitting with straight legs. Point yuor toes slightly away from you.
2) Hold the handles firmly in front of you and pull your arms out to the side like on the drawing.
3) Hold for a brief second then calmly bring your arms forward again.

How much: 2 series and 12-20 repetitions (you should feel a light burning sensation in your muscles)
How often: 2-3 times pr week. Not the same day as important concerts as you may feel fatigue in your upper back before the concert is over.

Don´t hesitate to contact me for further information. My contact info can be found on the Café de Concert website.

Yours truly in the name of fitness and health
Sondre

Out door concert at the Nordic Chambermusic Center

2010-06-05T17:27:00.007+02:00

On June 3rd the "Quartet on the corner" played a light and refreshing out door concert in the corner of Elingaard manor!
National television (NRK) was also there to capture the many magical moments from the concert, as for exemple when Haydn´s "Bird-quartet" obviously inspired a little local bird to dance for us, up above the audience.

Garden and house-concert at Aksel´s place

2010-05-30T01:19:00.010+02:00

Stand up comedy with Aksel Kolstad on "Russians" and Fred Uno Huvenes on "Arabic litterature", Russian Gipsy songs by Solfrid Molland, Shumann Gershin/Kolstad by Aksel Kolstad, Benjamin Britten´s solo suite for cello by Ingvild Nesdal Sandnes and a little encore by Farué... and THEN the party began... <3 Don´t miss out on our next house-concert :)
Check out our mediacenter for more photos http://www.cafedeconcert.no/mediacenter

Full house at Caffe Vivaldi

2010-05-19T13:53:00.006+02:00

We performed at the legendary Caffe Vivaldi again yesterday night with a full house of crazy Norwegians and local customers.
Aksel was on fire, super inspired by the wonderful musicians Jessie Montgommery and Amanda Gookin. These two gifted musicians seduced the audience in a way Café de Concert has never seen! And the best part is that they are super cool too!!
A lot of projects in the US will involve these two in the future, and Café de Concert will actually be bringing them to Fredrikstad Café de Concert festival in Norway already this September! Watch out Norway, here comes two funky musicians!!

Great party after the concert...

PS: And guess who showed up, guys - the superfamous Norwegian comedian Sturla Berg Joannsen!! :)

17th of May in New York

2010-05-18T13:38:00.001+02:00

"I remember my first time in New York on May 15th 2007. Walking down Lexington Avenue and 53 Street with a heart raceing like lightening, towards what was to become where my creative Manhattan-soul would blossom like never before, The Norwegian Seaman´s Church. I still have that feeling, walking down Lexington and 53rd, every time. The community of wonderful people and insanely gifted artists inspire in ways no pen in my power can yet describe. Celebrateing Norway´s National Day with all of these great people both working and hanging out at the church makes me so incredibly Norwegian! And there is nothing more Norwegian than beeing Norwegian and playing Norwegian music abroad. Especially when performing one´s own contemporary music, like I did during the official 17th of May-concert at 7 pm, last night. This was definitly the best national celebration in my life!! And I got to lead the whole parade, in my new, pink Moods of Norway-suit:) Huge Café de Concert-concert at Caffe Vivaldi tomorrow, can´t wait!!

Sincerely, Artistic Director of Café de Concert in New York - Aksel Kolstad"

Full house at the opening of the Nordic Chambermusic Center

2010-05-09T15:34:00.002+02:00

Full house (actually more than full) at the grand opening of the Nordic Chambermusic Center at Elingaard in Fredrikstad yesterday evening. Aksel hit it off with some of his own variations over Bach´s Goldberg Variations, then he performed Mozart piano concerto nr. 11 and Gershwin´s Rhapsody in Blue with Café de Concerts vital and energetic Fredrikstad Chamber Orchestra. Next concert at NCC is on June 3rd, a supercool outdoor garden concert. Don´t miss it! And to all you classical musicians out there - NCC is the place to be!!

A wonderful house-concert at Aksel´s place

2010-04-25T17:52:00.004+02:00

The atmosphere was electric, the stories from the book "Momo", told by the wonderful drama-student Iselin Shumba, was dazzeling and the music simply flew out of our instruments. Bjarne Magnus Jensen and I started off with the funky Norwegian dance nr. 1 by Halvorsen. Then I played my Harlekin-variations (over Bach´s Goldberg Variations), then came Mozart´s 1st movement from his violinsonata KV 333, I played his famous solo sonata in B flat major (1st movement) and after Bjarne amazed the crowd with Ole Bull´s Mountain Visit we finished off with Svendsen´s Romance and Beethoven´s Spring sonata
(1st movement). Man, that was a blast! Can´t wait to invite everybody to the next house-concert at Casa del Musica;) Great having you here, my dearest friends!!

House concert at Aksel's place!

2010-04-25T12:36:00.000+02:00

Chamber music was originally made for small chambers. That´s why it´s important to actually hold chamber music concerts in small, private rooms from time to time, to not loose tradition. This time - is Friday, at my place. Everybody is welcome! I´ll be playing with my very good friend and the wonderful violinist Bjarne Magnus Jensen, who performed at my last house-concert along with the also well known violinist Catharina Chen. Bjarne and I will be playing Bach, Mozart and Beethoven in addition to some wine and an amazeing apple cake my mother tought me how to make. During my studies at the Norwegian Academy of Music I used to throw apple cake-parties almost every sunday, which could enclude poetry, chamber music - or massage, where everybody would give each other a good old massage to get the blood pumping. It´s time to get the apple cake concert-parties up and running again. Hm, maybe I should contact Apple.... C u there :) 7 pm at Bjerregaardsgt. 64 B, Oslo.

Artistic Director´s definition of "a musician"

2010-04-11T17:29:00.003+02:00

Musicians are athletes!

The life of a classical musician is actually much more exhausting than what I believe most people think in the first place. One aspect is of course all of the travelling and physical effect it has on the body, and no less when having to perform at the same time. But what I would like to emphasise is the amount of strength needed to
play an entire concert, totally focused, and constantly having to flow over with enegry at the same time as produceing energy. In my mind it is really as hard as any other sport. Which brings me over to my very point -
both musicians and others should see the sport in music, and the music in sports. In other words see the athletism in art, and the art in athletism. I am an athelete - that´s why I wear Nike!

Asia #11 Final concert in Asia

2010-02-26T15:44:00.014+01:00

Last night we recieved a standing ovation from a full house at the Norwegian Seaman´s Churhc in Pattaya, Thailand. Bjarne and Aksel warmed up with a day at the beach - THAT´S how you should prepare Beethoven sonatas, guys!

There was absolutely nothing wrong with the marketing of the concert with posters and pictures hanging all over Pattaya - bringing in a full house later that night..

Many thank´s to the wonderful driver and everything-man Manee and the great guide Anne! You guys rock!! (And so we all did out on town after the concert..!!)

Today is our much longed for day off - then it´s back to the ice kingdom of Norway after two weeks which feels more like 2 months of adventure... I guess we are a bit speachless when it comes to makeing a summary of it all - hopefully the past blogtexts and photos have given you an idea of the great adventure this all has been. Café de Concert is heading back to home base - but just to reload and prepare for new adventures, bringing classical music out in the urban society... and the jungle. A big tribute to the man who made it all possible, the one and only Pastor Svein Helge Rødahl!

Here are some "unofficial" photos from the tour, guys! Enjoy;)

Hindu ceremony in Bali, early in the morning.

Bjarne and Vegard (our super duper Asia-photographer!

This is not what it looks like - it actually is one of the most fabous bars in Singapoore, getting your liquid straight in there....!!

Just had to make a snapshot of this car!!

The legendary Raffles Hotel.

He lived under our appartement....legendary!! :D

Bjarne finally found his inner self!

Aksel picked a fight in the Thai-ring..

Watch out guys! In this part of the world - girls are not allways what they look like, believe it or not...;)

Asia #10 Our wonderful Asia-photographer

2010-02-26T15:40:00.002+01:00

This guy - is worth an investigation!!
He´s travelling all over the world and makeing great snapshots!
We were so lucky to hook up with him in Bali and he followed us arund in different countries in Asia, shareing extreme adventours and wonderful musical moments with us.
Welcome on board the team, Vegard! You rock!
And guys - check out his blog.

Asia #9 Concert in the slum of Bangkok

2010-02-26T15:10:00.017+01:00

On Tuesday we got a glimps of the hard reality under the surface of Bangkok. We went out in the slum and played a concert for and with kids living in the slum - litterarely speaking. But some of these kids have been tought playing both the violin and cello by the fantastic Solveig Johannesen, which has been living together with her no less fantastic husband Dag Johannesen in Bangkok for 11 years. Dag as a pastor and Solveig running her own music school at The Immanuel Church/"Home of Praise". "Home of Praise" is a kindergarden and an activity-center which lies under the highway in the slum of Kling Toey in Bagkok. In this slum-area there lives 300.000-400.000 people. "Home of Praise" is a kindergarden during the day for kids between 6 months and 3 years. 30 adorable kids attend it today. In the afternoon the house opens its doors up to everybody and offers different activities like for exemple violin-playing, art, computers, english. It is run by "The Norwegian mission Society".

Before we came to where the concert was to be held we had a mini-mini concert for some school kids from the Immanual Day Nursery at the Immanuel Church.

Then we were taken around the neighbourhood and shown the devestateing images of what kids and elder people has to refer to as "home".

And finally we got to meet the kids at "Home of Praise" - and fell completely in love with them, who wouldn´t! Bjarne had a small work-shop with them, rehearsing Humoreske by Dvorak, Kanon by Pachelbell, Bach double concert in d-minor and the Elephant song - a very famous Thai kids-tune! Aksel and Bjarne opened the concert with some duo-repertoire. The kids AMAZED us with their play and will and eager to learn. All of a sudden, we all forgot what was hidden outside the walls of the house - the slum and devestateing everyday tragedies. Inside the house there was just pure love, music and children´s laughter...

And then began the unforgettable concert with the kids

Watch the video from the concert here:

Here is some information about two of the amazing people working at "Home of Praise".

In 1999 Dag started to work on establishing the congregations work and establish the activity-center "HOP" in the slum of Klong Toey (Nong Mai-district) From 2001- 2005 he worked as a pastor in the Immanuel Church. Since 2004 he has been the Norwegian Mission Company´s representative in Thailand and the Mekong area. He is responsable for all 16 missionaries and their families in addition to supervise all projects with local churches in Thailand and neighbour countries.

Solveig has her education as an organist, pianist, choir instructor and a music teacher from the music conservatoires in Stavanger and Bergn in Norway. She has managed to turn the "Hope of Praise" into a music-school for children where she teaches violin, cello and piano. Some of her students have already been accepted in different music conservatories, and she has so many great talents that we are sure to see in the future in grand concert scenes - thank´s to the wonderful and impressive work Solveig is doing for kids in the slum area of KlingToey.

Asia #8 - First concert in Singapore

2010-02-21T14:23:00.001+01:00

Singapore really blew our minds away - who said Hollywood, Dubai, Manhattan or Rio had it all? This city is totally insane! And the technology is really far out! Asia has in my mind won the race of fancy cities in the world with Singapore. I take my hat off! We had a great time performing at the Norwegian Seaman´s Church here in Singapore, having to do encores for a huge and very enthusiastic audience! The day after, Bjarne and Aksel took an afternoon in Chinatown - and now nightlife in Singapore awaits them....

Asia #7 - Boot camp

2010-02-20T12:34:00.006+01:00

During every Café de Concert-tour there is ALWAYS a Café de Concert BOOT-CAMP!!
Bjarne and Aksel hit the gym at the Ambhara Hotel after performing for Jotun earlier on Friday.

Asia #6

2010-02-20T12:29:00.003+01:00

On Friday we performed at the Jotun fabric in Jakarta with local employees, Jotun´s administration and also members from Statoil in the audience. When Bjarne and Aksel played the 1st movement from Beethoven´s
"Spring-sonata" the audience almost got on their feet! After the concert the guys got a very interesting tour on the fabric and were also given a golden penguin-pin from Jotun which they wore the whole day:) In Jakarta the boys stayed the fancy pancy Ambhara Hotel. Svein-Helge, you are the man!

Asia #5

2010-02-20T12:21:00.003+01:00

After leaving Bali we flew to Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia, and peformed at the Norwegian Embassy. In the audience were also representatives from the UN in addition to the ambassadeurs and other Norwegians living or travelling through Jakarta, which is an amazeingly huge city by the way. After travelling much of the world you little by little start to realize exactly how small Norway is....but also how wonderful it is to play music by great composers from a small country like Norway in a very big world...There can definitly not be anything more Norwegian than beeing a Norwegian and playing or listening to Norwegian music abroad. During this concert we got a new and very special fan in the audience :)

Asia #4

2010-02-19T12:24:00.000+01:00

An amazing place you just have to visit when you travel through Bali where you get traditional Norwegian food in a very, very exotic and exentric place, is "Mormors Hus" (Norwegian for "Grandma´s House") in Kuta, Bali. We made a pit stop there before we took off to Jakarta, and served some Norwegian folk music and a little taste of Aksel´s internal madness before dinner...

Asia #3

2010-02-18T19:09:00.002+01:00

On tuesday we performed our second concert (after a teaser-concert earlier the same day) at Gateway College for approximately 100 wonderful Norwegian students.
For the occation the arrangers had rented a very good Yamaha grand piano - which made Aksel
blossom quite much! During the performance all you could hear appart from the music was the waves from the ocean, palm trees conducting the music with its leaves and... the sweat dripping from Bjarne and Aksel - it was SO humid on tuesday, and the result can be seen on Aksel´s t-shirt.... is it? no it can´t be...yes, isn´t it - a heart of loving sweat...?

Asia #2

2010-02-16T23:12:00.002+01:00

Our first concert yesterday blasted off with an amazing audience - the enthusiastic Norwegian students from GoStudy. We opened the concert with Halvorsen´s Norwegian Dance nr. 2 and danced through the rest of program at the very cool "Barcode" run by a very cool Dutch owner. Pastor and impressario Svein Helge Rødahl is very happy that we now are rolling and rocking Bali with funky chamber music! Today Aksel went running on the beach at 7 am (freakin´morning bird) and witnessed an amazing Hindu ceremony. Aksel came home speachless and is now considering joining the ceremony tomorrow! Next concert today is at Gateway College, but before that - Aksel and Bjarne is going surfing on Kuta beach!

photos: Vegard Giskehaug

We're going to Asia!

2010-02-13T18:04:00.007+01:00

In two days Café de Concert, represented by Bjarne Magnus Jensen (violin) and Aksel Kolstad (piano) is launching the concept in South-East Asia, in collaboration with the wonderful priest and adventuror Svein Helge Rødahl. Once we get the tour going nice and easy we will also do some benefit concerts for children and perform in very poor areas where classical music - or music in general - is not often experienced by children at all. We are very excited about the tour - and we have heard so much about the wonderful Thai Airways so who knows - maybe we don´t ever want to leave the plane..

If some of you might be in the neighbourhood, just email us and we´ll send you the specific adress of where we are performing.

Here is our tour-schedule:

15th of feb, 19.00: Concert for the GoStudy-students, Seminyak, Bali.
16th of feb: Lunch-concert, somewhere in Bali....
16th of feb, 19.00: Concert for the Gateway College-studens, Jimbaran, Bali.
17th of feb, 19.00: Concert at "Mormors hus", Kuta
18th of feb, 18.00: Concert in ambassadeur Hommes recidens, Jakarta, Indonesia.
19th of feb, 12.00: Concert at the Juton-fabric, Jakarta.
19th of feb: Concert for the Gateway College-project
20th of feb, 19.00: Concert at the Norwegian Seamen´s Church, Singapore.
21th of feb 17.00: Concert-performance at the Norwegian Seamen´s Church, Singapore
24th of feb: Concert at the Norwegian Seamen´s Church, Pattaya, Thailand.

Aksel given a price of honor

2010-01-06T21:16:00.003+01:00

During the concert Kolstad hosted on January 3rd 2010 in Fredrikstad, he was awarded with 30.000 NOK "for his extraordinary work for classical music in Norway" by Østfold Energy. The price was handed over completely by surprise for Kolstad, which of became very happy for the special price he had recieved.

"Price of Honor - Østfold Energy Inc.´s price of honor for fine arts is given to Aksel Kolstad because of his
extraordinary work for classical music in Norway. The intention of giving the price is to stimulate and inspire the price-winner to achieve new artistic goals."

News article (in Norwegian)

Elingaard Manor = Nordic Chamber Music Center

2009-12-20T01:46:00.007+01:00

On December 13th Café de Concert unwrapped a special christmas-concert for the inhabitants of Fredrikstad at Elingaard Manor: "Mozart´s Christmasparty". There was a record high full house and the critics wrote "Marvellous Mozart". This was also the beginning for the establishment of Nordic Chambermusic Center at Elingaard, where Café de Concert will use its wide network and invite ensembles and orchestras to have workshops and perform the result in an open concert as well as being a center for contemporary film making.

Café de Concert has received 200.000 NOK to participate in establishing this center and will in 2010 produce 3 big concerts with various large ensembles and orchestras in addition to the 4-5 even bigger projects in 2011. One of the main goals is to gather all classical activities from various scandinavian mansions at Elingaard Manor.

Scholarship from Tom Wilhelmsen Foundation

2009-12-20T01:30:00.006+01:00

The Artisic Director of Café de Concert, Aksel Kolstad, was recently given a scholarship worth 30.000 NOK from the Tom Wilhelmsen Foundaiton in Norway to contribute to his work and studies in New York. Kolstad is very thankful and is looking forward to bring back more projects from the US to Norway as a result of the scholarship.

Steinway Hall opens up its heart to Café de Concert

2009-11-10T23:57:00.006+01:00

Aksel had a wonderful meeting with Vivian Chiu, Peter Goodrich and the amazingly funny piano tuner from Portugal. Now Café de Concert is planning future concerts in the lobby of the Steinway Hall.

Kolstad was so fortunate to be able to rehears in the wonderful basement where all of history´s greatest pianists have been rehearsing - and still are.
On the grand piano next to the one Aksel was practicing on, he found a reservation for a familiar name in Norway - so Aksel wrote a short message on his business-card for him.

Great meeting with Caffe Vivaldi

2009-11-10T23:48:00.003+01:00

Our New York producer, Leat Sabbah, and I had a great meeting today with Ishrat - the owner of the famous Caffe Vivaldi down town. Cafe de Concert will use Caffe Vivaldi as its main base in New York with concerts twice a week starting January 2010.

The CdC logo will be put up on the windows and the concept will blossom with great performers at the café and also new projects outside the café which will be lead by our three producers in NY, Leat Sabbah, Yemi Gonzales and Gabrielle Fink

Impressions of Norway

2009-11-05T21:17:00.006+01:00

Innovation Norway has started a new and wonderful trend in New York by presenting different impressions of Norway through design, architecture, gastromoni and music - this time at the residence of Norway's Consul General Sissel Breie at Park Avenue and 55th street in Manhattan.

Aksel Kolstad and Café de Concert were so fortunate to represent classical music as one of the impressions of Norway that was presented in the US yesterday. Aksel Kolstad also hosted the whole event and presented Moods of Norway, Snøhetta, the wonderful Norwegian chef Gunnar Hvarnes and of course also Café de Concert - all presented in hard core and entertaining Café de Concert-style.

Kolstad performed the Grieg piano-trio with two of CdC´s newest producers in NY, Gabrielle Fink (violin) and Leat Sabbah (cello) after performing one of his own solo pieces for piano. At the end of the event Filip Pogadi (violin) and Colin Brooks (viola) joined forces with Gabrielle and Leat and gave an outstanding performance of Grieg´s 1st movement from his string quartet in g minor.

Kolstad's opening words of the event:

"Norway is a young nation. Before the second world war most Norwegians were more or less peasants and fishermen...but then we found oil. The rest is history. Some call it a petroleum farytale. I call it pure luck. We were lucky enough to have smart men and women invest and develop our new treasure. But our greatest treasure of all, is our culture. So now we invest our petroleum money in culture and tradition."

Pictures by Berit Hessen.

Halloween in Oslo

2009-10-31T21:52:00.002+01:00

The last day of October, musicians from Oslo Camerata and Barratt Due perform "Dracula-Suite" by Philip Glass.

The legendary Ted Browning Dracula-film from 1931 with Bela Lugosi was shown later in the evening followed a Halloween-party with Halloween-menu in cafe.

Café de Concert takes to the skies

2009-10-22T16:22:00.004+02:00

This summer, Aksel went tandem skydiving.
See the movie here:

Aksel falls in love with Belgrade

2009-10-10T13:19:00.011+02:00

Aksel spent 10 wonderful days in this amazing town with a cultural history from another world and time. While walking down the historical road with old restaurants and cultural events, Aksel could simply just think of one word - amazing.

How could the Turkish people ever leave such a great city... Hundreds of years later, Belgrade was infact the first city where the outstanding conductor Zubin Mehta had his first professional engagement with Belgrade Philharmonic after he had fihished his studies. The 2nd trumpet-player of todays Belgrade Philharmonic, the virtuoso Aleksandar Soulnac, is together with Aksel Kolstad now preparing the first Café de Concert-concert in Belgrade in the little hall of the Philharmonic Orchestra to perform Aksel Kolstad´s Dalí-pieces (experience the Dalí-paintings and Kolstad´s Dalí-compositions on Aksel´s former website) for soloists and orchestra in addition to a couple of more compositions Kolstad will write for the same event. There will be put together a sinfonietta with musicians and soloists from Belgrade Philharmonic in addition to the exeptional pianist Andrijana Radivojevic. The sinfonietta, soloists and Aksel Kolstad will also present a new design for classical musicians on a traditional arena for both classical and contemporary music.

Café de Concert has heard of some interesting designers in Belgrade, but is also keen on presenting the Norwegian design from Moods of Norway (random bilde av Aksel i Moods fra arktivet) What do you say guys? Peder, Simen and Stefan...let´s rock Belgrade with Moods?

Parallell with this project, Café de Concert is going to put together a festival each spring at the Kulturni Centar Beograda in collaboration with the talented organizer Ljubica Babec from the center. These two projects is meant to be the start of a monthly café de concert concert-series in Belgrade at both the culture-center and perhaps also at the very cool and trendy café of the philharmonic orchestra - where they so very original typed the names of all of the first musicians who played in the orchestra.

Aksel made so many contacts in Belgrade thank´s to Andrijana Radivojevic, Café de Concert is very greatful for that! Our serbian producer Andrijana Vuckovic will absolutely have no troubles in administrating all of the great possibilities Radivojevic has given and showed us in Belgrade. Aksel was also amazed when he was taken to a restaurant called Little Bay, which almost looked like a mini-version of La Scala. And when he first set his feet in the restaurant (moja stopala su velika)he was completely "sold" when he heard classical music over the stereo. Several evenings each week this wonderful place has classical and jazz musicians entertaining the guests - the only thing that made Aksel´s heart bleed was that the music was played as background music... I believe the owner of Little Bay could be expecting a call from a young man from Norway with a great vision for Little Bay in the future... Maybe in a year or two Little Bay will be called Café de Concert...

To the young Norwegian´s heartbeating joy, Aksel experienced that Telenor has a supercool flagship store in Belgarde and is one of the leading phone-companies in Serbia. Yes, Aksel now has a Serbian phonenumber contracted by Telenor! Now wouldn´t it be great if Telenor would be interested in collaborateing with Café de Concert in Belgrade in the future...Something tells us that Aksel will not only make a phone call to the owner of Little Bay...

Belgrade, with all of its historical treasures and loving heart, made Aksel so inspired that he wrote these two compositions in two days when he was practising in the Kulturni Centar Beograd and recorded them with his iPhone. Listen to the first two minutes of each. "Two playful butterflies in love" & "A butterfly longing for his love"

New art exhibition at Café de Concert

2009-10-02T00:12:00.005+02:00

For our press conference and until now we have had the pleasure of exhibiting the fine art of Monika Helgesen. Now we are proud to present our new exhibition with the wonderful artist painter Yvonne Jeanette Karlsen.

Come in for a cup of coffee or some great food while watching the wonderful art of Yvonne! See Yvonne's art in her mini gallery.

Creative Incubator in Tallinn, Estonia

2009-09-22T00:09:00.002+02:00

Aksel had a succesful presentation of Café de Concert on the opening day of the Creative Incubator in Tallinn, Estonia. He was invited to Tallinn after the head of the Incubator in Tallinn, Anu Lõhmus, saw him do a Café de Concert-presentation in Berlin earlier this year. After the presentation Aksel played together wih the amazing violinist Kristina Kriit in the famous café in the old town in Tallinn called von Krahl Baar with lots of people and lots of fun!

We're open!

2009-09-16T23:20:00.002+02:00

Today we had the first concert of many at our new café in Oslo!
As usual, the café was filled with an enthusiastic audience eager to hear what we had planned for this special evening. On tonights menu stood a mix of chamber orchestra, violin, piano trio, a small theatrical performance and of course plenty of hilarous stories between the peaces.
During the rehersals, we got a visit from the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation who made a news story about us, airing the same night at the evening news. You can see it here at 08:44

We're also proud to announce that there will be held at least one classical concert a day from this day on. Remember to keep up to date on our concert calendar.

Why is Harlekin crying - a post festival story

2009-09-15T23:09:00.000+02:00

The circus is closed. Everybody went home. The streets are empty, and Harlekin has nowhere to go, his home has closed for the night. He strolls up the narrow streets, looking through window glasses. The rooms are all dark, everybody is a sleep. In the very end of the street lies a little café nobody goes to. Only Harlekin knows of it. He opens the café-door. A small candle is lit on one of the tables, next to a painting of Mona Lisa.

Harlekin smiles with tears in his eyes when he sees it. Mona Lisa knows Harlekin well. She likes when he comes to visit late at night. Next to Mona Lisa is an old piano. Harlekin sits down next to the piano and looks at the music lying on it. It´s the Goldberg-variations by Bach. Harlekin starts to cry. So does Mona Lisa. Halrekin starts to play. Then he looks at Mona Lisa and plays Bach the way she likes it.

Listen to Aksel Kolstad: Harlekins variations
(Live from the Fredrikstad Café de Concert-festival 2009)

Fredrikstad Café de Concert Festival 2009

2009-09-14T01:14:00.000+02:00

Fredrikstad CdC festival 2009 is over for now and we're now preparing for the opening of the café in Oslo. During the 12 concerts spanning from solo piano to chamber orchestra and saxophone, the audience got to enjoy live classical music in numerous cafés in Fredrikstad. Thanks to all the cafés for generously opening the doors for us to perform in a unique atmosphere!

This year, we had extra focus on children and teenagers as they usually don't get exposed to classical music. On friday Aksel and Andrijana, the new producer for Norway, visited Greåker VGS to play for the students. The result was that many of the students showed up on the concerts the following days.

As you can see, our audience span from children to senior citizens.
We want to thank you for your participation in our festival!

And a huge thanks goes out to our sponsors, especially the staff at Radisson Blu for taking such good care of us.

Feel free to visit the media center gallery for more pictures.

Fredrikstad Café de Concert Festival

2009-09-12T01:02:00.013+02:00

The traditional Fredrikstad CdC festival is being held at several concert venues throughout Fredrikstad these days. Since the opening concert on thursday, both young talents and established musicians have given café concerts in both traditional and untraditional venues. In high schools, intimate stages and cafés, we're trying to inspire and entertain our audience with a repertoire ranging from light classical music to contemporary music.

We're now half way through the festival, but a lot of great concerts are scheduled over the coming days. Worth mentioning is several concert with Fredrikstad Chamber Orchestra and a concert at Norways probably smallest venue - det konglelige norske humormuseum..

We hope to see you at the coming concerts and be sure to check out our festival site.

Feel free to check out the gallery in our media center.

Producer seminar at the café

2009-08-24T01:17:00.001+02:00

Today we had the first producer seminar at the café. The main goal was to teach about the different parts of the CdC experience, to ensure that each and every concert will have that special CdC touch. From verbal presentation, dress code, programming, Aksel guided the producers through an evening at the café.

Successful press conference!

2009-08-17T12:37:00.012+02:00

The press conference was absolutely packed with people and the atmosphere was extatic!
A lot of press showed up and Bjarne, Jan, Dimitris and Aksel gave a hell of a performance making the audience go completely nuts! We are finally there! Living our dream - we have created a new and urban café where classical music reaches out to EVERYBODY...every day! A place where musicians and other artists can meet and unite forces. Many thank´s to Stephan Barratt-Due and Eirik Birkeland representing both of the music institutions in Oslo who showed up for the press conference and did a very important live radio interview!

Come, enjoy Café de Concert at Henrik Ibsensgt. 60 A, in Oslo!

Preparing for tomorrows press conference

2009-08-11T21:42:00.018+02:00

As we're about to open our own café in Oslo, the final details before wednesday's press conference are taken care of. New logos in the windows, new menus, a small art exhibition with works by Monika Helgesen is just a few things.. Norsk Skilt-Gravering made very tasteful new logos in frosted white film. Thanks for all your help guys! Aftenposten also stopped by to do an interview.

We're all very exited about tomorrows press conference, and are looking forward to see a packed café once again! See you all there!

New logo up with the help of Norsk Skilt-Gravering!

Aksel and artist in residence Monika Helgesen

Photoshoot with the national newspaper Aftenposten

Café de Concert : Oslo - press conference

2009-08-04T00:20:00.005+02:00

August 12th is the day we'll present the future of Café de Concert, the official CdC café in Oslo.

During the press conference the media and audience will get an introduction to the concept together with music performed by Bjarne Magnus Jensen, violin, Jan Clemens Carlsen, cello, Dimitris Kostopolous, piano and Aksel Kolstad, piano.

You can also enjoy the small art exhibition with works by Monika Helgesen.

After the press conference we'll have a party, of course!

We'll promise you that our very first CdC café will be a great place to enjoy music, meet old and new friends and maybe go on a date in a great atmosphere with art forms that definitely will soothe your senses.

Bring your friends and come early! The place is going to be packed!

Performing at the Moods of Norway flagship store

2009-07-09T22:13:00.019+02:00

Preparation in the store just before the kick-off concert..

Piano technician David Andersen listening carefully.

Then came the moods-guys, Peder, Simen and Stefan, eager to listen to what we were preparing for the big event.

Found some supercool moods design..

And then.. it all went down like this:

The three genious Moods of Norway-designers got all of the 200 celebrity guests' attention..

And then we rocked the place!

You can also watch a video from the event!
KatTalesTV is the youtube channel of the artist Kat, which Café de Concert is very fond of! Her work is raw, uncensored, honest and very catchy.

Catching up with Moods of Norway in Los Angeles

2009-07-07T19:22:00.000+02:00

So we finally caught up with the "moody" gang in LA in their supercool new store on Robertson blvrd. Simen, Peder and Stefan stroke more than one great pose for a group picture together with violinist Catharina Chen, Aksel Kolstad and a new and fresh addition to the Café de Concert administration, Annick Welhaven Føyen.

And then came the amazing Steinway grand piano from David Anderson rolling down the street...Now we´re ready to blow the roof top away for tomorrows grand opening-concert at Moods of Norway with Catharina Chen, violin, and Aksel Kolstad, piano at 8 pm!

Chillin' in Hollywood Hills

2009-07-06T19:35:00.000+02:00

We´re staying at the wonderful "Alice in wonderland-house" of the fantastic and most loving people ever - Vanessa and Ron Kenan. You guys are the best, thank you so much for opening up your arms to us! We look forward to come back with a chamber orchestra performing in your wonderful garden!

A pit stop in New York on the way to LA

2009-07-05T19:42:00.000+02:00

A pit stop in NY before heading south-west. Michael Jackson´s breakthrough was at the famous Apollo Theatre in Harlem. Many great artist had their breakthrough at the Apollo and also performed there many times after that. It´s about time Café de Concert performed there too - so in 2010 you´ll see us there!

Many respects to the friends and family of Michael Jackson. He has actually been a great inspiration for Café de Concert - in my opinion he learned classical musicians how to groove. at least on the dancefloor.

Times Square - Bank of America with a grand piano inside..? Bank of America should be waiting for an e-mail from Café de Concert pretty soon..

Taking part of Creative Metropoles in Berlin

2009-06-29T23:09:00.001+02:00

We were so fortunate to take part in the presentation of Creative Metropoles in Berlin in May. A project which urges to create a renaissance of art and culture in Berlin hand in hand with making money on it - an idea Café de Concert easily goes to battle for! Many thanks to Katrin Tobies from Berlin who was in charge of the whole event as well as Elina Kuzjukevica for initiating the Creative Metropoles project.. Special thanks to Therese Holm Thorvaldsen and Maria Komendantova from Oslo Teknopol for choosing Café de Concert as Norway´s representative from Norway´s cultural landscape. We got to know many interesting entrepreneurs during our stay, and we are looking forward to work with the very interesting entrepreneur Karoli Hindriks and her network as we are aiming to establish a Café de Concert-series in her hometown, Tallin. Riga, Bucuresti and Helsinki are thanks to "Creative Metropoles" in Berlin also cities Café de Concert now will focus on in the future. We were, of course, extremely proud to present the wonderful design of Moods of Norway during the Café de Concert-performance!

Los Angeles and Moods of Norway - here we come!

2009-06-20T22:17:00.000+02:00

Moods of Norway is opening their U.S. Flagship Store in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles on July 8th and Café de Concert has been so fortunate to be able to perform for them during the opening. Catharina Chen, violin, and Aksel Kolstad, piano, will be playing Svendsen, Bull, Halvorsen and Grieg amongst other great composers, wearing Moods-design.

A Steinway & sons grand piano is sponsored by David Anderson. Thanks David!! You rock!

We're opening our own café September 16th 2009!

2009-06-10T22:03:00.000+02:00

Today is the day Café de Concert has been aiming at since 2003 - today we signed a contract making it possible for us to open our own café in Oslo on September 16th, 2009! The café is the former Café Frölich, where we have been performing since the concept had its first season in 2003. What joy it will be to finally play inside windows with the Café de Concert logo!

We believe this is the first café ever to exclusively perform classical music!
Let´s make history together! Come listen and play at Café de Concert!
Next stop - New York!

Documentary from our New York debut!

2009-06-09T13:45:00.001+02:00

Watch the trailer from our New York debut documentary
Filmed in March 2009. Production by Ingvild Ulset and Gudrun T. Grene.

Spring season finale!

2009-06-08T22:48:00.000+02:00

Café de Concert is becoming more and more like the reality-show "An Amazing Race" - as it conquers more cities, countries, exotic islands, performing everywhere from cafées to airplanes, on ships and in the jungle.

This season has been so exiting, especially with concerts in Russia, USA and Sweeden. All thank´s to Innovation Norway´s contribution to the foundation Café de Concert. The last concert for the spring season left us all breathless. Ladies and gentlemen, watch out for this young, beautiful and ultra gifted pianist - Ingunn Tennøe. Never in our lives have we seen such a blossoming artist on stage. What ever you do, don´t miss the next concert with this exceptional musician. Her carisma is outstanding, her personality is refreshing and her playing is marvelous.

Another artist Café de Concert is very happy to collaborate with is June´s profiled artist of CdC, Tine Thing Helseth (trumpet). Her playing is worshiped internationally by so many critics and she has already become an international star in the classical world. She will be seen and heard often at Café de Concert in the future.

There are also so many other great, young artists Café de Concert has had the pleasure of presenting to the rest of the world. And we will continue to do just that. Presenting musicians and creating a market for them to play in. A vision Café de Concert has had since its birth in 2003.

We like to use the term "direct marketing" as our strongest weapon in public relations. Therefore we always try to perform where big windows next to the streets can show people walking by what great atmosphere classical music can make in the right surroundings - in cafés. The philosophy of Café de Concerts "direct marketing" all began with our artistic director´s Café de Concert bicycle, where he´d ride it up and down the streets of Oslo, throwing roses at people with concert-programs attacted to them. That´s what we like to call "direct marketing with great impact".

Café de Concert has no limits. The sky is no longer the limit for us - and we will show you just high we can get up...buckle up, friends, your in for the ride of your life!!

Enjoy the summer and leap into the skies and fly with us!

A new video in the making!

2009-05-24T22:14:00.013+02:00

Last year Café de Concert made it´s first music video directed by
Aksel Kolstad (who seems to really make a habbit of doing
things he´s actually not suppose to be able to do....).

Café de Concert took the giant leap into music video making to make
a statement to the rest of the classical world: "Hey guys - let´s not
have our asses glued to the chairs in the orchestra
pits...Let´s join the rest of the musicians all over the world - on
MTV". Café de Concert has now just begun doing it´s second music
video, this time directed by Robin Alexander Eriksen, a young
promising student-actor at the American Academy of dramatic and arts
- circling towards becoming a film director. Café de Concert is also
planning to make movies of a larger scale in the future. And the
pilot for that will be a short film of 30 min, presumably with a
famous young star in the lead, right after the one beeing worked on now is finished.

In this one, Michelle Alexandra is the lead, supported by 12 fine young students,
like Robin, also from the American Academy of dramatic and arts.
Alia, Daniel, Betsy, Leah, Victoria, Garry, J.J, Jessica, Jared,
Caleb, Giordana and Derek - a big thank you to you guys for beeing
such great sports and contributing with great skills to this music
video. It all started with three scenes in Central Park, NY...let´s
wait and see what Robin has got up his sleeve for the rest of the
music by Arvo Pärt - Fratres - which will be recorded by Catharina
Chen and Aksel Kolstad in near future with our sound engineer Morgan
Nicolaysen.

Success at The Mayflower Renaissance Hotel

2009-05-22T21:03:00.006+02:00

After a day of sightseeing, water activities, exercising and relaxing in the sun by the waterfront in D.C. we headed over to the Mayflower Renaissance Hotel to perform the final concert on our May '09 US tour. We had a great night in this wonderful venue with such a warm atmosphere, playing Brahms, Mozart and Kreisler like never before! After the concert we hung out with some new friends from D.C. (picture shows Aksel performing in this super cool Moods of Norway pants)

We give our warmest thanks to the Norwegian embassy for all your support in D.C. and will come back any time! Just give us a call and we're there!

Performing at the Norwegian ambassadors residence

2009-05-22T18:41:00.005+02:00

Yesterday we performed at the Norwegian ambassadors wonderful residence in Washington D.C. Beautifully decorated with Norwegian furniture, fantastic art and a great Steinway & Sons piano, this place is just breathtaking! We were really excited to play for the employees at the Norwegian embassy and consulate in Washington, and we're looking forward to do it again some time!

We're in Washington!

2009-05-22T18:11:00.006+02:00

Wow this place is great! We're located in wonderful Georgetown, in the Northwest quadrant of Washington, a part of the city that is packed with great restaurants, bars and shops. Just a couple of hours after checking in at the hotel, we were heading for the Tryst, a nice location for a short concert.

The café didn't have a piano, so Catharina performed a couple of solo pieces for violin with great ovations from the audience. At the same time we promoted the concert at The Mayflower Renaissance Hotel.

Concert at the Norwegian Seamen's church

2009-05-22T17:13:00.007+02:00

On thursday, we once again performed at the Norwegian Seamen's Church. It was good to be back in this wonderful venue on Manhattan. Even though the weather was great, we managed to fill up the place. The program was filled with music for violin, piano, clarinet and spoken word. Aksel also dedicated his newly written piece "La Follia" to Frode at NSC.

It was very nice to see that a lot of people we had invited during the last couple of days showed up. Personal invitations has always been a part of Café de Concert, and it's cool to see that it works in New York as well as in Norway. Thanks to you guys at NSC for all your help!

Café de Concert takes to the skies!

2009-05-21T18:11:00.007+02:00

Yesterday we took to the skies with NYC-JC's associated helicopter service.
Just a phone call to Atle at NYC-JC, and before we knew it, we were up in the air, hoovering over Manhattan, the statue of liberty and New Jersey. Atle and Jarl, your new apartments look just awesome from the sky! It was great to see this amazing city from above on this wonderful day with not a single cloud in sight. It' gives you a special sensation to see Ground Zero, Central Park, Empire State Building etc. from this angle.

Together in the helicopter were Catharina, Michelle, Hilde Barsnes from the Norwegian seamen's church and Morgan.

At the same time, Aksel was invited to the CBS Studios in Brooklyn by the Emmy Award Winning Norwegian Makeup Artist Anette Lian-Williams. There he met with one of the producers working at CBS and a lot of other very interesting people.
Lian-Williams is now preparing a couple of projects together with Café de Concert combining classical music and fashion/film, a fusion Café de Concert has just recently started to experiment with.

Aksel had an amazing meeting with the famous and talented Norwegian actress Ewa Da Cruz, also working for the CBS in the soap opera As the World Turnes. She was kind enough to find the time between filming to talk with Aksel who came back to the rest of the gang with tons of ideas.
Ewa Da Cruz is a superb young actress Café de Concert is very exited to do an eventual collaboration with, which would be a short film by Café de Concerts movie director Robin Alexander Eriksen. We wish her good luck with all of her projects soon to come. Café de Concert is a big fan!!

And who knows, perhaps the CBS would be interested in a Café de Concert-show in the future? We´ll just have to wait and see...

Celebrating Norway's national day

2009-05-19T17:11:00.006+02:00

At our NYC-JC apartment, Norway's national day - May 17th, was kicked off with
117 push ups and the salut "God save the King and motherland! YES!" by Aksel.

We were also lucky to take part in the celebration of Norway's national day (May 17th) at the Norwegian seamen's church on Manhattan. It was a full house and was the most visited event of all times. Great music, both classical and jazz, Hanne Krog's great speach, hotdogs, ice cream and waffles put us all in the true 17th of May spirit! Aksel and Catharina played the story about "Ferdinand the bull" for the kids and later Johan Svendsen, Romanze and Johannes Brahms, Scherzo for violin and piano during the main ceremony. Thanks to Frode and the Norwegian seamen's church for letting us be a part of this wonderful tradition.

See more pictures in the mediacenter.

Volvo Ocean Race in Boston = teambuilding

2009-05-17T19:19:00.008+02:00

We have never in our lives experienced such an extreme sensation of massive sailboats with great power crunching through the sea just a few feet away from us where we were sitting breathless in the boat next to master and commander of the Volvo Ocean Race - the one and only Knut Frostad.

We were so fortunate to be onboard with both Knut Frostad, CEO of Volvo Ocean Race and racing director Jack Lloyd during the start of Leg 7 from Boston to Galway.

This major and unbelievable event was the greatest team building-tour ever for Café de Concert. Thank you so much Knut, you gave us energy to fill up and perform 250 new concerts - at least!

Knut Frostad has from the very beginning of Café de Concert guided Aksel and given him good advice of experience and taste on how to develop the concept into big business, and how to be a good leader. To be an "apprentice" of Frostad is an unforgetable situation. His leadership, wisdom, boldness and collaborating skills are high above average.

Knut Frostad is a great inspiration to Café de Concert and we hope that in the future we are able to collaborate and give something back to him and the fabulos Volvo Ocean Race.

Concert at the contemporary furniture fair reception and Germany/Berlin debut.

2009-05-16T07:00:00.011+02:00

Yesterday we performed at the contemporary furniture fair reception at the Norwegian consule general's apartment in New York. We love playing in intimate venues, and this is as intimate as it gets. If the audience would get any closer, they would actually have to play with the musicians.. The mood was just great and Aksel's jokes about classical music styles compared to furniture design perfectly put the music in perspective to the contemporary furniture fair.

At the moment we're on a bus heading for Boston to visit Knut Frostad and the Volvo Ocean Race. Aksel and Catharina is sleeping after a long week filled with concerts and meetings. Even Aksel needs some rest from time to time, even though he seems to have unlimited resources of energy. It has to be all the apple juice he's been drinking. Together with Aksel and Catharina, the actor Robin Alexander Eriksen (which is producing a new contemporary art movie with CdC next week) and Morgan are looking forward to see the start of Leg 7 of the Volvo Ocean Race from Boston to Galway (2.550 miles of transatlantic sailing).

We're also proud to announce that Café de Concert today also debuted in Berlin. We'll get reports from the concert by tomorrow.

We also want to congratulate the guys at Moods of Norway with the Beverly Hills retail store opening. You're such a great inspiration to all Norwegian entrepreneurs! You put the tractor on the map!

Café de Concert in NY = Full house

2009-05-15T19:12:00.009+02:00

There was not a chair left, nor room for more people to even sit on top of the tables at the fabulous Caffe Vivaldi when we performed there yesterday for the second time this week.
Innovation Norway invited a lot people and we felt at the top of our game when performing for them. Many thanks to Ishrat, the owner of the café, for his apperance at the concert and for an inspiring conversation after the concert.

After the concert we all went out to the great Schiller´s Liquor Bar.

On the way to Schiller´s we bumped into a " walking street-band" who stopped infront of us and gave us a spectacular performance. Yet another "only in NY-story". We just love this city!

Tonight we´re peforming for the Consule General of Norway.

Rehersal with dancers for contemporary furniture fair.

2009-05-14T23:39:00.011+02:00

Today, we headed for Roy Arias Studios and Theater and rehersal with dancers for a show on a Norwegian contemporary furniture fair. This is a colaboration between Innovation Norway and Café de Concert, and we're very exited to be a part of the show. The combination of modern dance, beautiful furniture and classical music is just perfect, and we think this is a great opportunity to present Café de Concert for a new audience in the US.

Catharina Chen, violin

Aksel Kolstad, piano

Dancers: Eric Brathwaite & Meghan MacAlpine

Dancer: Eric Brathwaite

Dancer: Meghan MacAlpine

Living like kings

2009-05-14T16:50:00.007+02:00

Yesterday we moved in to a spectacular NYC-JC apartment.
Catharina exclaimed "are you serious!?" about hundred times. That has to be a new record! We all love the place! These gorgeous and spacious apartments is just top notch and it has the best view of the Manhattan skyline ever! Even more exiting is that it's run by the two Norwegians, Jarl Haugedal and Atle Fossdal. Their business is literally taking off and they're just about to open up more luxury apartments. We invited Jarl and Atle and a couple of friends over for dinner to celebrate! It's just breathtaking, guys! You rock!
Be sure to check out their website NYC-JC.com!

Café de Concert Boot Camp, New York

2009-05-14T09:09:00.005+02:00

While Michelle was sleeping and snoring like a baby, and Nick was...probably doing the same thing...the rest of the gang, including Christina Wiig (Café de Concerts party-planner and publicity-activist in NY), went training with CdC Boot Camp instructor Odd Roar Jakobsen in Central Park at 9 AM.

We must not forget that Brahms used to be an athlete when he was young and that Grieg loved to hike in the mountains. They were all great sportsmen in music as well as in life. So must performers at Café de Concert be too. It´s time we changed the image of unhealthy and lazy musicians! As there is art in sports - there is also athletism in art!

See more pictures in our media center.

Norwegian surprise at Caffé Vivaldi

2009-05-14T04:01:00.010+02:00

All of a sudden, from out of the blue, several young musicians and students from the Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo (where Café de Concert started) popped up at the concert last night at Caffé Vivaldi. A venue with amlost every classical composer framed on the wall in the back of the café. What can you say - it´s one of those "only in New York-stories" that happened.

The grand piano was delightful to play on and the intimate atmosphere was extraordiary at this wonderful venue. We are lucky to be performing there again on Thursday at 7.30 PM!

See more pictures from the concert in our media center.

Full house at the Gershwin Hotel yesterday, and a new concert tonight at Caffe Vivaldi.

2009-05-12T22:01:00.011+02:00

With approx. 80 people in the audience, the concert lobby of the Gershwin Hotel was filled up to it´s maximum. Catharina and Aksel blasted off with the Brahms Scherzo who took the audience by storm.

This was actually the first concert either of the artists ever had played together, still it looked as if they were having so much fun and being totally relaxed together on stage. Michelle and Nicholas also made a fantastic impression on the audience. The relaxed environment combined with the outstanding performances and Aksel's hilarious jokes made the audience connect with the musicians in a very unique way.

The day before the concert, after the piano tuner had finished off and left the Gershwin Hotel, the grand piano got a undefined "click" on almost every key. The tuner wasn´t able to come back to cure the sick Baldwin grand piano before just one hour on the concert day - but thankfully, he succeded, just in time. But something tells us the Baldwin needs a total makeover today..

You can see more pictures from the concert on the media center.

Right now, we're heading off to Caffé Vivaldi where we're performing tonight. We took a detour to take som pictures on Times Square.

Getting ready for the concerts next week!

2009-05-09T20:24:00.024+02:00

As the days go by, we're getting in pretty good shape for the concerts next week. On wednesday, Aksel and Catharina met up with the talented clarinetist Nicholas Gallas for rehearsals at the Norwegian seamen's church. Thank's for letting us use your facilities, guys!

Nicholas Gallas is a young outstanding clarinettist who just finished his masters degree at Juilliard, NY.
He is performing as a soloist and a chamber musicians and is well know for his Stravinsky and Mozart interpretations.
He will be performing the Brahms sonata in f minor with us on the NY & Washington DC tour.

As the interest of the concept grows day by day, we're excited to have started planning concerts in october, november and december in the US.

We're very excited to play here again and are looking forward to see you all on Monday at the Gershwin Hotel!

Want to get in touch?
We're now all on US phone numbers.
Aksel: +1 (347) 822-0740
Catharina: +1 (267) 808-5588
Morgan: +1 (646) 255-6716

Here's some images from the rehersals.

A new day in wonderful midtown Manhattan.

2009-05-06T16:37:00.008+02:00

Aksel is as always strolling around the city, enthusiastically inviting people to the concerts and spreading the word about CdC. That's what we call direct marketing!

This time in the US, our team consists of Aksel Kolstad, (MD, pianist), Catharina Chen (violin), Nicholas Gallas (clarinet), Michelle Alexandra (actress) and Morgan Nicolaysen (multimedia, web, blogging, taking musicians out shopping)

As we're exploring the US, our Norwegian producer, Marcia Titley is taking great care of business in Norway. Marcia is the latest member of the administration and brings valuable knowledge to CdC.

In Norway today, musicians from Fredrikstad Chamber Orchestra will be performing at Verdensspeilet Café in Fredrikstad at 7 PM (19:00) and Amelie Lied Haga, violin and Christian Hundsnes Grøvlen, piano are playing at Café Frölich in Oslo at 8 PM (20:00) If you're either in Oslo or Fredrikstad, be sure not to miss out on these great musicians.

Innovation Norway in the US
Since december 2008, we have been so lucky to be supported by Innovation Norway.
Because of I.N., we're able to travel around the world with support from all of their offices abroad. We are very proud to be profiled on their Visit Norway page and extremely thankful for everything they do for us! Looking forward to see you at our concert on Monday, guys!

We're also doing our best to take care of our musicians while touring.
A part of that is taking them out shopping for shoes..

We're performing in New York and Washington DC. Don't miss it!

2009-05-04T22:33:00.024+02:00

We have just arrived in New York City and are ready for at least ten concerts in NYC and two concerts in Washington DC.

The first concert will be held at The Gershwin Hotel (7 E, 27 street) on Monday, May 11th at 7:30 PM. We're also proud to at the same time present this month's profiled artist, Catharina Chen.

Catharina is a very talented violinist acknowledged for her charismatic playing both in Norway and abroad. Born in Oslo, Norway in 1985, Catharina began studying violin at the age of 5 with her father. Since the age of eight she has soloed with all major orchestras in Norway, including the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, Norwegian Radio Orchestra, Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, Trondheim Symphony Orchestra, Tromso Symphony Orchestra, Oslo Camerata, and ZKO-Zuricher Chamber Orchestre. Well known to Norwegians through television and radio broadcast programs, Catharina is the recipient of numerous awards, and the youngest musician in Norway ever to be awarded the highly respected and prestigious Oslo City Culture Prize.

In addition to Catharina, Aksel Kolstad (piano), Nicholas Gallas (clarinet) and Michelle Alexandra (actress) will perform on both The Gershwin Hotel (May 11th) and Caffe Vivaldi (May 12th at 8:45 PM and on Thursday, May 14th at 7:30)

On May 17th, Aksel and Catharina will perform twice on Norway's national day at the Norwegian seamen's church i NYC. We're proud to take part of this great tradition.

For updated concert schedule, please visit our website.
You can also sign up for concert alerts there.
All concerts in the US are free.

We're busy rehersing as well as going to meetings with our associates and partners in the US.
We also got time for a little photoshoot to kick off our US tour!
Pictures from the concerts will be published in our media center.

Michelle Alexandra is a young and upcoming Norwegian-American actress with an already well established name in both theatre, film and musical productions.

PS! Don't miss the concert at Café Frölich in Oslo May 6th at 8 PM with
Amelie Lied Haga, violin and Christian Hundsnes, piano.

Welcome to our blog!

2009-04-16T14:05:00.004+02:00

For those of you that are unfamiliar with Café de Concert, here's a short description:

The driving force behind Café de Concert is to present classical music to a larger audience. The genre has by no means the same appeal as pop, rock or jazz. Creating a more relaxed atmosphere results in a more intimate concert format than the traditional solemn style. The idea that classical music can once again become popular music, the way it once was, is the motivation behind the concept Café de Concert.

Classical concerts at cafés – Café de Concert recruits musicians, both students and professionals, to play classical music for the people. The goal is to stimulate as well as strengthen everyone’s interest in classical music. The level of musicianship is high, and with a relaxed, positive atmosphere, between the pieces, it is possible to have a cup of coffee, have something to eat or perhaps talk with the person sitting beside you.

Café de Concert is an arena for all creative arts. In addition to musical performances, there are regular arts exhibitions and ballet/modern dance performances directed by CdC.