Ketil Bjørnstad is one of Norway's most important pianists. His melodic playing is based on elements of European concert music as well as on a great ability to improvise inspired by jazz. His compositions have been used in films by Jean-Luc Goddard and Ken Loach, among others. Although Ketil Bjørnstad is generally considered to be jazz - he himself does not see this so clearly - his roots lie in classical music, after all, he made his debut in 1969 with Bartók's Third Piano Concerto with the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra. For some time it looked as if Bjørnstad would stick with this music, if it hadn't been for Oslo's vibrant jazz scene in those years. The jazz musicians' new, playful approach led the then eighteen-year-old musician away from this predetermined path. From that moment on, he says, he realized what he really wanted: to write and play his own music. Bjørnstad is also known to an even larger audience as a writer. His novella "Vindings Spiel" was also at the top of the bestseller lists in Germany. In his home country, Bjørnstad is a cult. In Germany, although only a fraction of his more than twenty works have been translated here, he is probably the best-known Norwegian author. And there may be no one else who reflects the soul of Norway in books and novel biographies as much as Ketil Bjørnstad.

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