A new year – a fresh start!

I have decided that I will quite promising to write more often, maybe then I’m actually going to do it… The autumn went by in a spin, like a whirlwind! Suddenly Christmas was upon me and I completely dived into the holiday season with no thoughts of work what so ever (yeah – really! Not easy, but for once I managed to do so…)
So many things have happened since I last wrote a blog post, and I will not use this space to guide you chronologically through all my performances, but I would still like to mention some of them.
Living in a bus with tenThing for two weeks is definitely worth mentioning! We all felt like real rock stars, having our very own bunk bed on the top floor in our jumbo cruiser double decker bus… Very glamorous! (do you hear the irony in my voice?) Even though we lived like a proper rock band and played concerts (and had master classes and work shops) every single day, we turned more and more into a real ladies club. By the end of the tour everyone was knitting, shopping only exercise outfits and running shoes, not to mentioned we actually used the stuff we bought and went for a run almost every day. No drinking, no smoking… What a thrill for our tour manager (male) and light/video guy (also male), they thought ten girls would be fun!

The countries I got to visit autumn 2011 were Italy, Germany, Denmark, Switzerland,
United Kingdom, Monaco and not to mention so many great places in Norway I had not been before. This is one of the real privileges in my job, I get payed to visit new and wonderful places around the world!

Right now I’m in Belgium, preparing for my first concerts of 2012. This Spring will take me to many new (and old) places, among them Canada, United States, Hong Kong, Japan, UK, China, Ukraine, Germany… it’s going to be a good spring (I hope)!

One absolutely thrilling experience that started this autumn and will continue throughout the spring of 2012 is the release on my very first album for EMI Classics. It’s called Storyteller and it’s a collection of songs written originally for the voice. I play with the amazing (I do love them) Royal Liverpool Philharmonic with conductor Eivind Aadland and I also have Håvard Gimse( the one and only!) with me on the disc. It’s already released in Scandinavia and Germany/Switzerland/Austria, and will be released in the rest of the world this year. Look out for it!

Well, that’s all for now. I have to get back to my practicing.

All the best from the road,
Tine

- Tine Thing Helseth 2011 -

Tine

- Tine Thing Helseth 2011 -

Monday is a strange day. Out on the streets people care for each other, even though we are total strangers. You feel the love. Around 5pm I get a phone call – two hours later I play for over 200 000 people in front of the city hall. All there to pay respect, to show the man who did this that we are stronger together, to say that we love each other no matter religion or skin color. It’s like I’m not there. When I play the very opening of my piece, solo trumpet before the piano joins me, everyone lifts the roses they have in their hands. Then I just close my eyes. I’m not there. My voice is, my music is, but I have to be strong. I tell myself I can cry later – right now I have to forget I’m there and just play. It’s definitely one of the strongest and most special moments in my life. I feel privileged to have felt, seen and tasted air full of so many emotions – most of all love.

We will never be the same after 22nd of July 2011.

Love,
Tine

- Tine Thing Helseth 2011 -

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I love meeting people I know at airports! Today I met two amazing musicians at Gardermoen. While checking in, the great jazz trumpeter Mathias Eick calls my name from the line next to me. On his way to LA to play His record The Door is truly amazing – I highly recommend it! Always nice to bump into Mathias (this is not the first time!) always smiling – even when he discovered that I could skip the incredibly long line at security and use the fast track…
Arriving in the SAS lounge, working on my iPad and waiting for my flight to start boarding – who other than Arve Tellefsen walks in! Great Norwegian violinist, has been around forever. He was one of the first to “discover” me, I think I was 16 years old the first time he invited me to play at his two festivals in Norway. He might be in his seventies, but he is so full of youth and spirit that you wouldn’t notice. He and his violin was on their way to Alicante – I got instantly jealous, will imagine it’s a tiny bit warmer there than in Glasgow (which is were I’m heading today).

So much has happened lately. May was full of concerts, and I truly had some wonderful musical experiences that month! Another thing that happened was that my best friend since I was 6 years old, Dagrun, got married. The horrible thing – I couldn’t be there… I played an important concert that day and couldn’t cancel.So what I did, was that I arranged all the music for the ceremony and made a video greeting/speech with a lot of pictures from we were kids I’m really sad I missed it, but I know that they both knew my heart was there with them. I wish them all the best in the world!

Sometimes it’s hard to know how to make all your different aspect of life go together, but usually it works out in the end.
Tine

PS: me and Dagrun 11 years old

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We have to stop meeting like this…
You can only guess were I am right now. That’s right – up in the sky! I’ve just answered 13 emails and gone through my itinerary for the next 12 days, when I remembered that I hadn’t written that blog entry about my EMI signing that I’ve been wanting to do for some weeks now.

19th of April was a truly exciting day for me. I flew over to London in the morning, checked in to my hotel in Kensington, went for some express stress-relaxing shopping, walked around one of my favorite neighborhoods in London (behind Royal Albert Hall) and tried to really enjoy and memorize everything so that I can think back on this day when I get old, and then – at 6pm – I entered the great EMI building. And from that on everything became very overwhelming. So many enthusiastic and happy people cheering, drinking champagne, eating EMI and trumpet muffins. Eric (the boss), Andrew (the A&R), Ed (my manager) and myself signed the contract – huge moment for me.
After the big gathering were I got to meet everyone from all the different departments there was a nice dinner with my amazing management team (Kathryn, Ed, Clare and Clare ) and some of the EMI Classics people. I can’t wait to start working with everyone (well, I’ve actually already started and it’s great!) and look forward to work out some new and exciting artistic concepts and record ideas.

I only have one thing to say – you’re allowed to dream – and before you know it, it might just come true!

Yours from the road,
Tine

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