Bio

Rebecka Sofia Ahvenniemi is a composer and philosopher living in Oslo. She was born in Finland in 1982 and moved to Norway in 2004. Today Rebecka is an artistic research fellow at the Norwegian Academy of Music.

Most of Rebecka’s music is written score music, often combining acoustic instruments with electronic mediums. In many of her musical works, as well as research and writing, she engages in questions that critically concern culture and society.

Rebecka studied composition of music and philosophy at the University of Bergen, the University of Helsinki, Freie Universitet Berlin, and Columbia University. She finished her doctoral degree in philosophy in the fall 2021 with the thesis Musical Composition as Lingering Reflection. Exploring the Critical Potential of Music. Further, she has taught composition at the Grieg academy in Bergen and Musikkhøgskolen in Oslo. She has also been a lecturer at the Department of Philosophy at the University of Bergen.

Rebecka is a board member of the Arts Council Norway. She has been a committee member of “Turné og virksomhetsstøtte” since 2016, and the leader since 2018.  She was a board member of the Norwegian Society of Composers from 2013 to 2018. Further, she was the board leader of the concert series Avgarde from 2019 to 2020.

Rebecka was engaged as the house composer of KODE in Bergen for 2022. She was also the festival composer of Kaustinen Chamber Music Festival in September 2022.

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Key composers, writers, and thinkers: Salvatore Sciarrino, Morton Feldman, Theodor W. Adorno, Simone Weil, Karin Boye, Martin Buber, Søren Kierkegaard, Edith Södergran, Vibeke Tellmann