Haug, Halvor

Halvor Haug – Essay for Alto Trombone and String Quartet (1987)

(b. Trondheim, 20. february 1952)

First performance:
Oslo University Aula, May 19th 1987
Synnøve Hannisdal, alto trombone with a student string quartet

Halvor Haug grew up in Bærum (near Oslo). He learned to play the piano and the trumpet, playing the latter for several years in a  local wind band. His theory teacher at the conservatoire, Kolbjørn Ofstad (1917 – 1996), recognised a creative talent in young Halvor and encouraged him to write some music of his own. This resulted in three small piano pieces which Ofstad asked him to orchestrate. Two of the orchestrations were performed in the Oslo University Aula by the conservatoire orchestra, thus giving Haug the first taste of what would become the main focus of his creative life: symphonic music.

Further studies in Helsinki brought him, in 1973, in contact with Einar Englund (1916 – 1999) and Erik Bergman (1911 – 2006) who where his teachers for a year. Bergman was one of the pioneers of modernism in Finland. Englund (one of the foremost Finnish symphonists in the generation after Sibelius) taught Haug mainly orchestration. These two impulses proved to be of great importance for the development of Haug’s artistic personality. In 1978 Haug received advice from the English composer Robert Simpson (1921 – 1997), another great symphonist in the second half of the Twentieth Century. …

Read full preface / Das ganze Vorwort lesen> HERE