Born in 1972 in Norway, he is a composer who, at some point  quite a few years ago, decided that his practice should involve  all art forms; that music is more than sound; and that, in principle, there are no restrictions on what types of material may  be allowed or relevant. This led him to embrace an aesthetic of  Universalgenie-dilettantism.

In 2009 he established his own opera house, The Norwegian  Opra, in his own living room in what he described as the slums  of Oslo. Since the project was an attempt at a radical withdrawal  from the standard modes of production and working processes  of traditional opera and contemporary music—and perhaps also  because he suffers from mild social anxiety and steadily increasing doomsday paranoia—he decided not to admit an audience to  his performances, except for a few well-meaning insider friends.  As a further radicalisation of the project, the institution was relocated deep into the Swedish forests in 2015. In this environment  of isolation and concentration, the now-famous opera-film series  Ø was begun. Ø signifies the empty set, the void and therefore  also the foundation of infinite possibilities. To date, the series  consists of seventeen episodes, plus ten episodes of the spin-off  The Followers of Ø.

He has also written for many different ensembles and media,  and his work has been performed at festivals and venues including Ultima Oslo Contemporary Music Festival, SPOR festival,  Münchener Biennale – Festival für Neues Musiktheater, Summer Courses for New Music Darmstadt, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Donaueschinger Musiktage, Theatertreffen, Ultraschall Berlin, Warsaw Autumn, and Berliner Festspiele.  He has cooperated extensively with the theatre-makers Vegard  Vinge and Ida Müller since 2009, most recently on Peer Gyntat  the Volksbühne Berlin. He is Associate Professor of Composition  at the Norwegian Academy of Music and has been a member of  the Academy of Arts in Berlin since 2021.

Selected works: Strukturelle Konstellation II for 8-channel tape  (1997), … and yet there will be a hundred visions and indecisions  for seven instruments (1997), Psalm for 14 instruments (1998),  Processes of the Interstitial electroacoustic work (1999), Bagatellen  for piano (1999), Aus der Vergängnis for string quartet (1999),  Wie man zum Stein spricht for flute, cello, percussion and piano  (2000), Hun-hadde-pupp-i-nesa-si, electroacoustic work (2000),  Hörreste for 21 instruments and electronics (2002), Turba – Theories of Mass Society for choir, live and pre-recorded video, PowerPoint, CD playback, composer’s performance etc. (2003), Goddag madam Reinholdtsen, God aften frøken Flink, radiophonic  work (2003), In context for clarinet, guitar, percussion, video and  recorded composer’s speech (2004), Everyday for saxophone,  11 instruments, documentary recordings and text (2005), Catalogue of Emotions for singer / lecturer and overhead projection (2005, also version with piano), Reinholdtsens Ode to Solitude,  installation / film (2005), Antigone Absence, music theatre piece  for empty stage, invisible musicians (violin, flute and percussion),  invisible tap dancer, invisible Antigone (soprano), Don Giovanni sample and interview with dramaturge on video (2005),  Des Moines / Sparta + Music for four musicians, three overhead  projectors, PowerPoint, samples and live drawing (2006), Music  as Emotion for accordion, clarinet, cello, piano, guitar, untrained  singer, speaker, recorded sound, video and handouts (2007;  rev. 2011), Ghosts, theatre piece (with Vegard Vinge and Ida  Müller, 2007), Collected Music Performance Videos, video (2008),  Concert Music Piece, several versions for musicians, composer  performance and PowerPoint (2008–), 13 Music Theatre Pieces  for accordion / synthesizer / voice, piano, clarinet, cello, electric  guitar, ad hoc player and three simultaneous PowerPoint presentations (2008), Ny Musikk-revyen, atonal cabaret on the history  of the organisation Ny Musikk, Norwegian ISCM section, for six  musicians, choir, actors, performance, etc. etc., with Kai Johnsen  and Bodil Furu (2008), Worlds beyond, installation for 20 dancers,  musicians, children’s choir and 15 CD players (2008), The Wild  Duck, theatre piece (with Vegard Vinge and Ida Müller, 2008–9),  Unsichtbare Musik for soprano, clarinet, cello, guitar, piano, percussion, speaker and recorded sound (2009), The Norwegian Opra  launch and gala happening for six musicians, 30 singers and performers, composer, etc. etc. (2009), The Apocalypse, “opra” (2010),  Orpheus, “opra” (2010), Faust, or the Decline of Western Music for  piano, PowerPoint, recorded sound and theatrical effects (2011),  Utopia, “opra” (2011), John Gabriel Borkman, theatre piece (with  Vegard Vinge and Ida Müller, 2011), Musik for soprano, clarinet,  cello, guitar, piano, percussion, composer, PowerPoint, machines,  etc. (2012), Narcissus, “opra” (2013), Inferno, based on a novel by  August Strindberg for percussionist, videos, playback and alchemy  (2013), 12-Spartenhaus, theatre piece (with Vegard Vinge and Ida  Müller, 2013), Vier Deutsche Lieder for playback singing (2014),  Take on me for playback singing (2014), Ø, episodes 1–17, “opras”  (2015–20 and ongoing), Theory of the Subject, piano concerto  with prerecorded and live video and composer performance  (2016), Spätstil for clarinet, cello, guitar, piano, percussion, samples, smoke machine and pyrotechnics (2017), Nationaltheater  Reineckendorf, theatre piece (with Vegard Vinge and Ida Müller,  2017), Institute for Posthuman Performance Practice, building,  documentary film, percussion piece, theory and performance  (2018), Preludium, Religion, Erkenntnis, Moral und Fuge, Part 1,  for four instruments, composer, copies of The Blob and forest  (2019), Preludium, Religion, Erkenntnis, Moral und Fuge, Part 2:  Parergon zur Ø episode 18, 19 und 20, for four instruments, whispering composer under a bed and TV (2019), To arms! To arms!,  affirmative oratory for 50 actors and musicians, scenography and  film (2020, rev. 2021), Preludium, Religion, Erkenntnis, Moral und  Fuge, part 3, for four instruments, composer explanations, three projectors and The Blob (2021), The Followers of Ø, episodes 1–10,  “opra” films (2021–26 and ongoing), Hedda Gabler, theatre piece  (with Vegard Vinge and Ida Müller, 2022), The Followers of Ø:  Die Dämonen, music theatre work played on four parallel stages  for six performers and playback (2022), Keine Ideen, keine neue  Perspektivefor two performers, choir, prerecorded video, dancing  instruments, smoke machines and darkness (2022), Byggmeister  Solness, theatre piece (with Vegard Vinge and Ida Müller, 2023),  Einzelgänger, cycle of Lieder for two mimes, baritone, self-playing  piano and handed-out scores (2023), The Chosen Ones, five-hour  “opra” on the premises of The Norwegian Opra in the forest in  Sweden (2024; also a 13-screen video documentation), Peer Gynt,  theatre piece (with Vegard Vinge and Ida Müller, 2025), History  does not exist, “opra” for 18 musicians, actor and three big video  screens (2025), Spree Utopie for choir on eight boats in ghost costumes (2026).