Performers & composers

Maja Ratkje

Maja Solveig Kjelstrup Ratkje, composer and performer (born Dec. 29th 1973 in Trondheim, Norway), finished composition studies at the Norwegian State Academy of Music in Oslo in 2000. Her music has been heard all over Europe as well as in Japan, Canada, USA and eastern Russia. Her composed works have been performed by Oslo Sinfonietta, The Norwegian Radio Orchestra, Arve Tellefsen, Cikada and Vertavo string quartets, Quatuor Renoir, Ticom, crashEnsemble, Torben Snekkestad, SPUNK, Frode Haltli and POING among others. Portrait concerts with her music has been heard in Toronto and Vienna, and she has received many awards and commissions from throughout the world such as the International Rostrum of Composers in Paris for composers below 30 years of age, she has received the Norwegian Edvard prize (work of the year) twice, second prize at the Russolo Foundation, and in 2001 she was the first composer ever to receive the Arne Nordheim prize. Her solo album Voice, made in collaboration with Jazzkammer, got a Distinction Award at Prix Ars Electronica in 2003.

Ratkje is active as a singer/voice user and electronics player as well as studio engineer, mainly in connection with the contemporary improvisation ensemble SPUNK and the noise duo Fe-mail. Other main collaborators are Jazzkammer, POING, Lotta Melin and Jaap Blonk. Ratkje has performed her own music for Ibsen's play Ghosts, and her voice has been heard in Icelandic film music as well as in contributions to numerous other projects. She played a leading part in her own opera, based on the texts from the Nag Hammadi Library, in 2003. In 2005 she performed the voice solo part of her first big work for orchestra, commissioned by Radio France.

Her scores are found at the Norwegian Music Information Centre and her records are released on rune grammofon, ECM, Kontrans, Albedo, Aurora, Important Records etc. Her homepage may be visited at www.ratkje.com

“Ratkje's voice is gloriously possessed by the tongues of more split personalities than there are angels on the head of a pin." - The Wire

“Ratkje is one of the most astonishing singers on the planet, sounding at times like Diamanda Galas or Shelley Hirsch.”  - Chicago Reader

We have arrived

The dance-music work We have arrived is by coreographer Ólöf Ingólfsdóttir and composers/musicians Maja Ratkje and Áskell Másson.

The world keeps turning and we turn with it, caught in a constant flow of never ending motion. Everybody is busy going...where? Trying to reach....what? Is this what it´s all about? What is the purpose of all this trawelling?
Nothing has a meaning, yet everything is full of meaning. Right here, right now. We have arrived.

The piece is a close collaboration between all the performers as well as the choreographer and composers. The music is composed for voice, drums, double bass and percussion and is partially performed live on stage.