Percussionist Espen Aalberg is equally happy in jazz or classical music. In the former, he is part of the Norwegian jazz-quartet The Core, as well as (with Jonas Kullhammar and Torbjörn Zetterberg) the Scandinavian trio Basement Sessions. In all, Aalberg has toured to 20 countries and released 12 CDs, mostly of his own music. Aalberg has also been the Trondheim Sinfonietta’s percussionist since 2003, as well as freelancing with the Trondheim Symphony Orchestra. For den kulturelle skolesekken (Norway’s public school concert system), Aalberg has composed and developed shows such as JUNK, with percussionist Lars Sitter, and iSpill, with the Alpaca Ensemble. Since 2016 Aalberg has been a research fellow of Norway’s Artistic Research Programme, specifically working on a project called Gamelan as Inspiration. Aiming to integrate Indonesian gamelan instruments and compositional techniques into western-oriented ensembles, Ellen Lindquist’s commission Mantra is part of Aalberg’s project.
