Café de Concert

A new video in the making!

Submitted by aksel on Sun, 2009-05-24 20:14

Last year Café de Concert made it´s first music video directed by
Aksel Kolstad (who seems to really make a habbit of doing
things he´s actually not suppose to be able to do....).

Café de Concert took the giant leap into music video making to make
a statement to the rest of the classical world: "Hey guys - let´s not
have our asses glued to the chairs in the orchestra
pits...Let´s join the rest of the musicians all over the world - on
MTV". Café de Concert has now just begun doing it´s second music
video, this time directed by Robin Alexander Eriksen, a young
promising student-actor at the American Academy of dramatic and arts
- circling towards becoming a film director. Café de Concert is also
planning to make movies of a larger scale in the future. And the
pilot for that will be a short film of 30 min, presumably with a
famous young star in the lead, right after the one beeing worked on now is finished.

In this one, Michelle Alexandra is the lead, supported by 12 fine young students,
like Robin, also from the American Academy of dramatic and arts.
Alia, Daniel, Betsy, Leah, Victoria, Garry, J.J, Jessica, Jared,
Caleb, Giordana and Derek - a big thank you to you guys for beeing
such great sports and contributing with great skills to this music
video. It all started with three scenes in Central Park, NY...let´s
wait and see what Robin has got up his sleeve for the rest of the
music by Arvo Pärt - Fratres - which will be recorded by Catharina
Chen and Aksel Kolstad in near future with our sound engineer Morgan
Nicolaysen.

Success at The Mayflower Renaissance Hotel

Submitted by aksel on Fri, 2009-05-22 19:03

After a day of sightseeing, water activities, exercising and relaxing in the sun by the waterfront in D.C. we headed over to the Mayflower Renaissance Hotel to perform the final concert on our May '09 US tour. We had a great night in this wonderful venue with such a warm atmosphere, playing Brahms, Mozart and Kreisler like never before! After the concert we hung out with some new friends from D.C. (picture shows Aksel performing in this super cool Moods of Norway pants)

We give our warmest thanks to the Norwegian embassy for all your support in D.C. and will come back any time! Just give us a call and we're there!

Performing at the Norwegian ambassadors residence

Submitted by aksel on Fri, 2009-05-22 16:41

Yesterday we performed at the Norwegian ambassadors wonderful residence in Washington D.C. Beautifully decorated with Norwegian furniture, fantastic art and a great Steinway & Sons piano, this place is just breathtaking! We were really excited to play for the employees at the Norwegian embassy and consulate in Washington, and we're looking forward to do it again some time!

We're in Washington!

Submitted by aksel on Fri, 2009-05-22 16:11

Wow this place is great! We're located in wonderful Georgetown, in the Northwest quadrant of Washington, a part of the city that is packed with great restaurants, bars and shops. Just a couple of hours after checking in at the hotel, we were heading for the Tryst, a nice location for a short concert.

The café didn't have a piano, so Catharina performed a couple of solo pieces for violin with great ovations from the audience. At the same time we promoted the concert at The Mayflower Renaissance Hotel.

Concert at the Norwegian Seamen's church

Submitted by aksel on Fri, 2009-05-22 15:13

On thursday, we once again performed at the Norwegian Seamen's Church. It was good to be back in this wonderful venue on Manhattan. Even though the weather was great, we managed to fill up the place. The program was filled with music for violin, piano, clarinet and spoken word. Aksel also dedicated his newly written piece "La Follia" to Frode at NSC.

It was very nice to see that a lot of people we had invited during the last couple of days showed up. Personal invitations has always been a part of Café de Concert, and it's cool to see that it works in New York as well as in Norway. Thanks to you guys at NSC for all your help!

Café de Concert takes to the skies!

Submitted by aksel on Thu, 2009-05-21 16:11

Yesterday we took to the skies with NYC-JC's associated helicopter service.
Just a phone call to Atle at NYC-JC, and before we knew it, we were up in the air, hoovering over Manhattan, the statue of liberty and New Jersey. Atle and Jarl, your new apartments look just awesome from the sky! It was great to see this amazing city from above on this wonderful day with not a single cloud in sight. It' gives you a special sensation to see Ground Zero, Central Park, Empire State Building etc. from this angle.

Together in the helicopter were Catharina, Michelle, Hilde Barsnes from the Norwegian seamen's church and Morgan.

At the same time, Aksel was invited to the CBS Studios in Brooklyn by the Emmy Award Winning Norwegian Makeup Artist Anette Lian-Williams. There he met with one of the producers working at CBS and a lot of other very interesting people.
Lian-Williams is now preparing a couple of projects together with Café de Concert combining classical music and fashion/film, a fusion Café de Concert has just recently started to experiment with.

Aksel had an amazing meeting with the famous and talented Norwegian actress Ewa Da Cruz, also working for the CBS in the soap opera As the World Turnes. She was kind enough to find the time between filming to talk with Aksel who came back to the rest of the gang with tons of ideas.
Ewa Da Cruz is a superb young actress Café de Concert is very exited to do an eventual collaboration with, which would be a short film by Café de Concerts movie director Robin Alexander Eriksen. We wish her good luck with all of her projects soon to come. Café de Concert is a big fan!!

And who knows, perhaps the CBS would be interested in a Café de Concert-show in the future? We´ll just have to wait and see...

Celebrating Norway's national day

Submitted by aksel on Tue, 2009-05-19 15:11

At our NYC-JC apartment, Norway's national day - May 17th, was kicked off with
117 push ups and the salut "God save the King and motherland! YES!" by Aksel.

We were also lucky to take part in the celebration of Norway's national day (May 17th) at the Norwegian seamen's church on Manhattan. It was a full house and was the most visited event of all times. Great music, both classical and jazz, Hanne Krog's great speach, hotdogs, ice cream and waffles put us all in the true 17th of May spirit! Aksel and Catharina played the story about "Ferdinand the bull" for the kids and later Johan Svendsen, Romanze and Johannes Brahms, Scherzo for violin and piano during the main ceremony. Thanks to Frode and the Norwegian seamen's church for letting us be a part of this wonderful tradition.

See more pictures in the mediacenter.

Volvo Ocean Race in Boston = teambuilding

Submitted by aksel on Sun, 2009-05-17 17:19

We have never in our lives experienced such an extreme sensation of massive sailboats with great power crunching through the sea just a few feet away from us where we were sitting breathless in the boat next to master and commander of the Volvo Ocean Race - the one and only Knut Frostad.

We were so fortunate to be onboard with both Knut Frostad, CEO of Volvo Ocean Race and racing director Jack Lloyd during the start of Leg 7 from Boston to Galway.

This major and unbelievable event was the greatest team building-tour ever for Café de Concert. Thank you so much Knut, you gave us energy to fill up and perform 250 new concerts - at least!

Knut Frostad has from the very beginning of Café de Concert guided Aksel and given him good advice of experience and taste on how to develop the concept into big business, and how to be a good leader. To be an "apprentice" of Frostad is an unforgetable situation. His leadership, wisdom, boldness and collaborating skills are high above average.

Knut Frostad is a great inspiration to Café de Concert and we hope that in the future we are able to collaborate and give something back to him and the fabulos Volvo Ocean Race.

Concert at the contemporary furniture fair reception and Germany/Berlin debut.

Submitted by aksel on Sat, 2009-05-16 05:00

Yesterday we performed at the contemporary furniture fair reception at the Norwegian consule general's apartment in New York. We love playing in intimate venues, and this is as intimate as it gets. If the audience would get any closer, they would actually have to play with the musicians.. The mood was just great and Aksel's jokes about classical music styles compared to furniture design perfectly put the music in perspective to the contemporary furniture fair.

At the moment we're on a bus heading for Boston to visit Knut Frostad and the Volvo Ocean Race. Aksel and Catharina is sleeping after a long week filled with concerts and meetings. Even Aksel needs some rest from time to time, even though he seems to have unlimited resources of energy. It has to be all the apple juice he's been drinking. Together with Aksel and Catharina, the actor Robin Alexander Eriksen (which is producing a new contemporary art movie with CdC next week) and Morgan are looking forward to see the start of Leg 7 of the Volvo Ocean Race from Boston to Galway (2.550 miles of transatlantic sailing).

We're also proud to announce that Café de Concert today also debuted in Berlin. We'll get reports from the concert by tomorrow.

We also want to congratulate the guys at Moods of Norway with the Beverly Hills retail store opening. You're such a great inspiration to all Norwegian entrepreneurs! You put the tractor on the map!

Café de Concert in NY = Full house

Submitted by aksel on Fri, 2009-05-15 17:12

There was not a chair left, nor room for more people to even sit on top of the tables at the fabulous Caffe Vivaldi when we performed there yesterday for the second time this week.
Innovation Norway invited a lot people and we felt at the top of our game when performing for them. Many thanks to Ishrat, the owner of the café, for his apperance at the concert and for an inspiring conversation after the concert.

After the concert we all went out to the great Schiller´s Liquor Bar.

On the way to Schiller´s we bumped into a " walking street-band" who stopped infront of us and gave us a spectacular performance. Yet another "only in NY-story". We just love this city!

Tonight we´re peforming for the Consule General of Norway.