Biography
Asbjørn Scaathun (b.1961) is the youngest of his generation, which also includes composers such as Rolf Wallin, Cecilie Ore and Åse Hedstrøm. He emerged on the professional music scene in the early 1980s, first with works performed at the Young Nordic Music Festival and then as the prime mover behind a number of concerts and ensembles. As founder of the 20th Century Ensemble of the Norwegian State Academy of music and later of Oslo Sinfonietta, Schaathun realized at an earlier stage that bringing together young composers and musicians was a means of infusing the music community with new life. In addition to these organizational activities, Schaathun was also active as a composer, having studied composition first at the Norwegian State Academy of Music and then in London (Royal College of Music) and Paris (IRCAM). His works attracted attention at an early stage because they represented a new, uncompromising attitude in Norwegian compositional practice in which the emphasis was on abstract, structural forms and planning of large-scale procedures.
Schaathun's works mark the entry of computer-aided composition into Norwegian music. What emerged was his need for structure, a need for construction of material that lies beyond the realm of immediate experience. As the composer himself puts it: 'I have to have structures to work towards, or else I'm not able to compose. It is a matter of moderating my own idiom. The most successful moments in my music are those where I attempt to accomplish something according to a specific line of thought, and it collides with a structure that says "You can't do that!' This collision contains the germ of innovation."
Biography text from Last.fm, available under CC BY-SA.