It was in September 2003 after the Austrian premiere of my double concerto Behac Munroh that Ole Edvard Antonsen asked me if I would write a 15-minute piece for him and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra.

Of course I got very enthusiastic, and we immediately spent some time listening to some of his recordings.

He played some of his own pieces for me, some wonderfully childish songs written for his son, and I was amazed by the beauty and expressiveness of his sound. The opening of my concerto could not have been written had I not heard this, and then it was led by one thing after another. In the middle of writing the fast bit of the first movement I was called by a Turkish orchestra about a concert… the pure fantasy of walking the streets of Istanbul gave me the theme for this part of the concerto. While working with the second movement I was planning the concert schedule for my new orchestra, the Nordic Chamber Orchestra. One of our projects is a Japanese tour with Ole Edvard as soloist… closing my eyes and imagining what the Japanese would enjoy hearing from a Nordic Soloist and orchestra, set the mood for this movement. Starting the third movement, I got a call from Ole, who was working on a project with some international jazz musicians. He was so excited about how well the oriental lines were sounding on the trumpet… and there was the seed to the third movement.

Simple and naive, some might think; and I agree! As music always speaks for itself I would very much like to avoid giving a more intellectual  and existential description of this piece, although I could go into the techniques I used, harmonic structure, form etc… and bore you all to death!!

There is one thing, however, I would like to add:

My dear friend Toru Takemitsu once said "I have to write for a specific occasion, or have a specific soloist in mind when I write music. When writing for Christian, I close my eyes and see his face in front of me, then the music comes". This wonderful idea inspired me a lot, and for my trumpet concerto I stole it right off: without Ole Edvard and his trumpet in mind, this would have been a completely different piece.