London, 2025

 

Kjell with Friends is a project which will celebrate one year of release in November 2025. For Kjell Sønksen, this is more than a creative opportunity; it is also the build up of a community of twenty-two worldwide artists creating together under the umbrella of modern classical music. Each piece, co-composed between composer and pianist Sønksen and a collaborative artist, is the exploration of independent musical ideas and inspirations, all through a common aesthetic and direction, well defined by the German musician. 

 

Indeed Sønksen’s creative brief to Kjell with Friends was to ask each participating artist to send a musical idea which represented their style best in order for Sønksen to then develop it and make it his own. In each resulting piece, one can hear both identities co-existing, the essence of the initial musical idea, and Sønksen’s own creative development. 

 

Out of the twenty-two works which constitute Kjell with Friends, there are some light and joyful pieces; such as “Daydreaming in Cities”, with Alexander Motovilov, but most of the works tend to be on the melancholic side —  such as Alanna Crouch’s “it is not lost, if only…”, or the comforting “Hygge” by Jozef De Schutter, “Silence Before the Storm” by Almira, “Dawn’s Awakening” by Cameron Segal or even “L’Allée des souvenirs” from Jonathan L’Espérance or even Jade Ashtangini’s “Shanti”. There is a great focus on melodic pieces as well, such as Adrien de la Salle’s “let me tell you what it was” or Koshun Kakao’s “Chimes in a Foreign Country”, although some works, such as Francisco Casarotti’s “After the Rain”  which contains some interesting harmonic surprises. Despite the expected limited range of tonal potential of the project — due to being centred on the piano only —, Kjell with Friends reflects a lot of diversity in the stylistic approaches, and personalities of the participating musicians; from Oscar Kowalski’s impressions of impromptus with “Jouska & Sonder”, to the balladeering of Elyse Cloudd’s “Ballet of the Forgetful Hedgehod” or Susanne Darre’s gentle waltz of “Isfuglens Dans”, complemented by Rick Gallagher Project’s, similar in mood, “Water Strider Waltz”. Finally some lovely additional pieces include Guilherme Veroneze’s “Opus X”, Matthew Labarge’s bitter-sweet “Becoming Old Friends”, where Sønksen musical personality emerges brightly or  also “Heart of the Waves” by Saah. The collaborative musical idea takes its roots back to the theme and variations of early classical music — one might think of Diabelli’s variations for instance — but Sønksen approaches it in its own innovative, unique and modern way. There is a heritage of late-romanticism too, which appears in “Loud Secrets” by David Spagarini for instance and of course the influence of the current post-minimalism school of independent artists led by Nils Frahm — which is evident in Pieter Savenberg’s “Bliss” for instance or Astrid Sky’s “Starlight Sands” and Ole-Bjørn Talstad’s “Behind the Waterfall”, which are pieces focusing, like much of the project, on soft and sparse musical miniatures. 

 

Altogether Kjell with Friends is a wonderful testament and display of collaborative creativity between international musicians, all under the firm direction of Sønksen which makes the whole of the project not only coherent but a wonderful musical moment to experience.