Last Saturday my music for the kids sci-fi show Kometkameratene was performed by Kringkastingsorkesteret, at the famous, Norwegian cultural fortress Bjørvika Opera House.
It was my first visit to the complex, and I approve of the place. They can play more of my music there if they want to.
The building is impressive, with sexy nordic curves and materials, and I really like that you can literally walk all over the place and peek into it from above. The bar also know their Dry Martinis, which never has hurt a respectable establishment.
The performance was not in the main hall, but at Stage 2. I am sure it should have been in at Stage 1, as the show has been sold out for months. There were lots of kids waiting excitedly in line, and with the awesome marble acoustics in the foyer I'm sure I could have sampled the reverbal essence of anticipation right there.
I think the kids, like me, was mostly excited to find out, how are they going to pull this off? How are they going to integrate comic sci-fi puppeteering into a symphonic musical performance?
Quite simply: Brilliantly. It was a fantastic show, they managed to keep the fun, the curiosity and the musical attention all the way. I forgot about my music, I was laughing and having a great time as the puppets probed, asked and unwittingly sabotaged the orchestra.
I was very happy to realize, this is not only a great TV show. It is a fantastic world of humour, science, research, curiosity and music, that kids love, and this world works also very well in a live performance setting.
Kudos must go to the production team and the actors, as I learned afterwards they had a very hard and hectic time putting it all together. It was impossible to tell.
At the end the puppets demanded the orchestra to play their own theme song, and the kids started yelling the theme long before the orchestra got started. Bless their little memories, the song is printed in their innocent little minds.
What have I done. In twenty years time they'll be playing Kometkameratene reruns, ironic hipsters will be wearing retro logo shirts, and somebody is going to make a Crazy Frog ringtone version of it all.
