Ruth Bakke & Anne Marthe Dyvi – De Composition

Bergen composer Ruth Bakke and visual and video artist Anne Marthe Dyvi have found each other and have since the spring of 2020 been working on their commission De Composition for pipe organ and video projection for Borealis 2021! The piece is being written for the impressive Storetveit Church, built in 1930, designed by the renowned architect Ole Landmark. Bakke has worked at Storetveit as church organist for 45 years in addition to her impressive career as a composer, and so for her the premiere will be on home turf, but this time in a whole new setting with Anne Marthe Dyvi’s visuals, inspired by nature’s processes and the inner working of the pipe organ, accompanying the music. 

Borealis is proud to present this fresh collaboration between these two outstanding artists from two different art fields and generations. Bakke, born 1947, made a career for herself in composition and as an organ player. She studied in the USA for a longer period in the 60’s and 70’s and has composed large orchestral works as well as music for brass band and chamber ensembles, piano, church, electronic and organ music . Dyvi, born 1979, on the other hand comes from the visual arts field and has had her base in Bergen since 2010 when she finished her Masters degree at the Bergen Academy of Fine Art and Design. Dyvi has a special interest in technology and time, human existence, survival and behaviour, which comes through in her work. Together Bakke and Dyvi have created a piece where their differences and different expertise – the aural and visual – will meet and grow into each other. Using nature’s circular processes, the wheel of time, geological time and human affected time as their ground structure and inspiration, we can’t wait to present the outcome of this new and exciting collaboration.

Anne Marthe Dyvi discovered Ruth Bakke‘s work back in 2018 when she heard an in-depth interview with the composer on Norwegian National Radio's programme NRK Spillerom Søndag. The programme is following this project from cradle to premiere and will in collaboration with Borealis present a conversation between the artists after the concert hosted by radio journalist Marion Hestholm.

Photo: Anne Marthe Dyvi/ De Composition