It’s time for 2016’s first tour next week, and at the same time I will enter a creative mode to compose music for projects scheduled later this year:

• Anders Thorén’s (dr) upcoming album, together with myself, Seamus Blake (sax), Hayden Powell (trp), and Ole Morten Vågan (bs). Will be recorded in Rainbow Studio late February.
• A collaborational project called ‘NCO’, with musicians from the Nordic countries, together with Efrain Toro (dr, Puerto Rico) and Sergio Gonzales (dr/voc, Cuba).
• A new record with Espen Berg Trio to be recorded in December.
• Tour with EBT featuring Tore Johansen (trp) in October.

This spring I will also play concerts with Kåre Kolve’s (sax) commissioned project originally written for Trondheim Jazz Festival 2015 with Mathias Eick (trp), Anders Jormin (bs), Ivar Kolve (vib) and Per Oddvar Johansen (dr), Trio Tett featuring Hildegunn Øiseth (trp) and Andreas Håkestad (dr), my own trio, and Daniel Herskedal’s “Slow Eastbound Train” in Norway and France.

Right now I’m working hard to finish all teaching and lecturing at the university here in Trondheim so I can be on a leave from March to June together with my family. And I’m of course very, very much looking forward to the Japan Tour with Espen Berg Trio in July.