POING is Rolf-Erik Nystrøm on saxophones, Frode Haltli on accordion and Håkon Thelin on double bass. The trio started playing together in 1999, and has been one of the leading ensembles for contemporary music in Scandinavia since. POING has been presenting contemporary music at unconventional venues, played in clubs and concert halls in most European countries, the US as well as touring in China and Japan. They have played more than 100 first performances and worked in close collaboration with…
POING is Rolf-Erik Nystrøm on saxophones, Frode Haltli on accordion and Håkon Thelin on double bass. The trio started playing together in 1999, and has been one of the leading ensembles for contemporary music in Scandinavia since. POING has been presenting contemporary music at unconventional venues, played in clubs and concert halls in most European countries, the US as well as touring in China and Japan. They have played more than 100 first performances and worked in close collaboration with composers such as Bent Sørensen, Terry Riley, Rolf Wallin, Michael Finnissy, Volker Heyn and Helmut Oehring.
The three musicians are each among the world’s top performers on their instruments, both as interpreters of notated music and improvisation. Their unique flexibility results in many untraditional commissions that go beyond the usual interpretation, interaction and dissemination of contemporary music. For their work with contemporary music, POING were in 2009 awarded "Performer of the Year" by the Norwegian Society of Composers.
In 2003 POING released their first CD Giants of Jazz on their own label The Legendary Royal Records, with works by Norwegian composers from their own generation. Planet POING was released on Jazzaway Records in 2006, and sur POING, with music specially written for them by Richard Barrett and Helmut Oehring and an improvisation with legendary drummer Paul Lovens, was released on Grappa Musikkforlag in 2016.
POING share a longstanding collaboration with composer and singer Maja S. K. Ratkje. As part of their concert series Wach auf! and Kapital & Moral they have performed songs associated with the labor movement and socialism and collaborated with socialist choirs from around the world.
The trio regularly works with musicians from around the world – amongst them Swedish, Swiss, Nepali, Brazilian, American, Azerbaijani, Mongolian, Egyptian, Danish, Chinese, Japanese, Indian, Iranian, Mauritanian, Ivorian, Tanzanian, Irish, Faroese, French, Icelandic, Finnish, German, Peruvian, Brazilian, Baltic, Sami, Russian, Bulgarian and Spanish musicians – with roots in different musical styles: folk and traditional or popular music to more experimental expressions.
2017