Alongside a distinguished career as a soloist with some of the world's greatest orchestras, Norwegian star violinist Henning Kraggerud is also a composer. On this new release he combines these two roles in a collaboration with Jostein Gaarder, author of 'Sophie's World'. The Brodsky Quartet and Britten Sinfonia are among the various ensembles that have recently commissioned and performed works by Henning Kraggerud. With Equinox, Kraggerud has written four violin concertos, 24 postludes for violin and chamber orchestra, and music for a stage production all in one work! Following in the footsteps of great masters of the violin, such as Fritz Kreisler and Eugène Ysaÿe, Henning Kraggeruds approach enables the performative and creative processes to develop hand in hand. In Equinox, Kraggerud has written beautiful, mournful, bubbly and heartbreaking music, organized into four violin concertos entitled Afternoon, Evening, Night and Morning. Kraggerud performs regularly with eminent conductors such as Denève, Saraste, Dausgaard, Vänskä, McCreesh, and McGegan, to name a few. A dedicated chamber musician, he performs frequently on both violin and viola in venues such as Londons Wigmore Hall, appearing alongside artists including Imogen Cooper, Adrian Brendel, Steven Isserlis, Joshua Bell, Martha Argerich, Leif Ove Andsnes, and Piotr Anderszewski. Kraggerud plays a 1744 Guerneri del Gesù, provided by Dextra Musica.
On the Simax label, Henning’s most recent release is a collaboration with the Arctic Philharmonic Orchestra and world-famous author Erik Fosnes Hansen. Entitled Between the Seasons, the disc features Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons interspersed with Henning’s own compositions. Also for Simax, Henning has recorded the complete solo sonatas of Ysaÿe, on a disc which won the prestigious Spellemann CD award. On the ACT label, he released a disc entitled Last Spring which explored improvisations on Norwegian folk music with jazz pianist Bugge Wesseltoft. This season, the two artists re-join for a performance at Jazz at Berlin Philharmonic.