I recently had the privilege to meet a young Norwegian composer named Alexander Aarøen Pedersen - who, fresh out of college and with a bunch of musical accolades to his name, is clearly going to be a torch-bearer for the next generation of symphonic, full-blooded composers badly lacking in the current climate of filmic musicianship.
His emerging style is a kind of synthesis of John Williams and Joe Hisaishi, with some Resighi or Ravel-like colorations and impressionistic, vaguely jazz-like harmonies sneaking into his music now and then. If he's already writing with this level of authority at a mere 25 years of age, I can't wait to hear what his music sounds like when he's into the thick of his career ten, fifteen, twenty years from now. Even Williams wasn't writing like this yet at his age.
From his Soundcloud I highly recommend you check out "Child of Winter" and "Memories of a Blue Room" - both outstanding and colorful works for large orchestral forces, the later actually recorded by the Hollywood Studio Symphony no less.
However it's his full score for a short film he put together himself as a sort of college thesis project, "Wrath of the Music God", that I think truly begs attention and really establishes this young talent as one to watch. The music just soars! It's gorgeous, exhilarating, varied and demonstrates absolutely fantastic instincts for drama and melody. I've never heard a mere 35 musicians sound more full-bodied and expansive (no overdubs here, just tricks of orchestration and some light touches of what I assume to be a synthetic choir to help add body to the soundscape).
Really fantastic stuff - the style of execution in the short won't be everyone's cup of tea but again, this really exists more as a demo for his musical storytelling skills, for which the piece is incredibly successful. I'll let it speak for itself:
And there's a really nice BTS video of the recording of both "Wrath of the Music God" and "Child of Winter" here:
It's so good to know there are young composers out there who have both the chops and knowledge to pull off this kind of grand, thematic, deftly-orchestrated music written in a lush and palatable style. Hopefully a very strong and rewarding career awaits him in the future.
Thought it wouldn't hurt to put him on people's radars now!
I'm Norwegian, and I haven't even heard of this guy. Thanks for the tip!
In fairness, he hasn't really "scored" anything yet per se - everything you see above are fully-orchestral demos or the like, some of them as parts of conducting workshops held by ASCAP here in Los Angeles, so there's really no reason anyone WOULD have heard of him yet necessarily. But he's an extremely talented young man and I thought his music would appeal to the more doom-and-gloom types like myself who lament the lack of talented young "symphonic" voices who really knows what they're doing. You heard about him from me first...!
I do hope more than two people have checked out his work?
bobbengan, thank you very, very much for alerting us to Alexander Aarøen. I just watched the videos and listened to his works and I'm deeply impressed - what rich, beautiful, and exciting music, masterfully orchestrated and performed. Everybody here should sample his works and check out the videos!
bobbengan, thank you very, very much for alerting us to Alexander Aarøen. I just watched the videos and listened to his works and I'm deeply impressed - what rich, beautiful, and exciting music, masterfully orchestrated and performed. Everybody here should sample his works and check out the videos!
Is Aarøen working and living in L.A. now?
Not yet! He was commissioned to write a ballet and trumpet concerto in Norway, both of which are wrapping up and due for performances (and recordings) soon. I do know he was offered orchestration work by one of the "heavy hitters" of the moment but thankfully he decided to pass on that in order to focus solely on his own composition work (and if I name-dropped the 'composer' in question, you'd sure be grateful that he made that choice).
I was hoping you'd see this thread Dylan; "Memories of a Blue Room" in particular has a rich Legrand-like sound that I thought you would appreciate!
I'm actually grateful that some idiot spammer resurrected this thread, because I missed it the first time around. This kid is a great talent, and I'm so glad to know about him. There are even more orchestral showpieces on his website here:
