Et brev til Prinsesse Madeleine av Sverige...

Kjære eventyrlige Madeleine!

I 2001 skrev jeg et eventyr om deg. Og senest i mars i år
så fortalte jeg eventyret til mitt publikum under en solo-konsert i Oslo.
Jeg er usikker på om du husker eventyret, så jeg tok det opp så du
kan få høre det her: www.akselkolstad.com/audio - spor 7.
I denne tøffe tiden du går igjennom så ville jeg bare få deg til å smile litt:)
Du vil alltid inspirere Korporal Kolstad, og jeg vil alltid være kjærlig tro mot deg gjennom kunsten!
Jeg er i New York og spiller et par konserter mellom 15 og 25 mai, om du har lyst til å treffes over en kaffe
hadde det vært eventyrlig!

Beste hilsen, din musiske Korporal Kolstad

A wonderful house-concert at my place

The atmosphere was electric, the stories from the book "Momo", told by the wonderful drama-student Iselin Shumba, was dazzeling and the music simply flew out of our instruments. Bjarne Magnus Jensen and I started off with the funky Norwegian dance nr. 1 by Halvorsen. Then I played my Harlekin-variations (over Bach´s Goldberg Variations), then came Mozart´s 1st movement from his violinsonata KV 333, I played his famous solo sonata in B flat major (1st movement) and after Bjarne amazed the crowd with Ole Bull´s Mountain Visit we finished off with Svendsen´s Romance and Beethoven´s Spring sonata
(1st movement). Man, that was a blast! Can´t wait to invite everybody to the next house-concert at Casa del Musica;)
Great having you here, my dearest friends!!

House-concert at Aksel´s place!

Chamber music was originally made for small chambers. That´s why it´s important to actually hold chamber music concerts in small, private rooms from time to time, to not loose tradition. This time - is Friday, at my place. Everybody is welcome! I´ll be playing with my very good friend and the wonderful violinist Bjarne Magnus Jensen, who performed at my last house-concert along with the also well known violinist Catharina Chen. Bjarne and I will be playing Bach, Mozart and Beethoven in addition to some wine and an amazeing apple cake my mother tought me how to make. During my studies at the Norwegian Academy of Music I used to throw apple cake-parties almost every sunday, which could enclude poetry, chamber music - or massage, where everybody would give each other a good old massage to get the blood pumping. It´s time to get the apple cake concert-parties up and running again. Hm, maybe I should contact Apple.... C u there :) 7 pm at Bjerregaardsgt. 64 B, Oslo.

Musicians are athletes

The life of a musician is actually much more exhausting than what I believe most people think in the first place. One aspect is of course all of the travelling and physical effect it has on the body, and no less when having to perform at the same time. But what I would like to emphasise is the amount of strength needed to play an entire concert, totally focused, and constantly having to flow over with enegry at the same time as produceing energy. In my mind it is really as hard as any other sport. Which brings me over to my very point - both musicians and others should see the sport in music, and the music in sports. In other words see the athletism in art, and the art in athletism. I am an athelete - that´s why I wear Nike!