Tanja Orning

Tanja Orning eradicates the traditional boundaries within her profession – being both a composer, performer, improviser and an interpreter of classical works – an approach which she shares with many musicians today. It is in fact a return to a historical practice which was common before performance and composition became separate professions. Orning’s background is traditional, with classical cello studies in Oslo (Norwegian State Academy of music), London (private studies with Willian Pleeth) and the USA (Master of Music in Performance with Janos Starker at Indiana University), and as a co-principal cellist in the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra. In 2000 she chose to leave her full-time orchestra post in order to realise her own wide-ranging music projects. In the band Wunderkammer Orning is a rock cellist; in Kyberia she creates new visual and musical forms of expression in collaboration with violinist Victoria Johnson and various video artists. In the interdisciplinary group Mobile Homes she acts as composer and performer, and she has realised a number of projects in collaboration with poets, actors, and dancers.. Another feature of Orning’s musical world is her close collaboration with composers writing for her. In 2005 she released her soloCD Cellotronics which profiles Orning as a soloist. But rather than choosing the traditional symphony orchestra, she has chosen the synthesizer and computer as her accompanists and musical partners.