Oddvar Lönner - Biography
Oddvar Lönner. Born 24. August 1954 in Tønsberg, south of Oslo. Studied piano at the Barratt Due Music Institute in Oslo 1972-75. Studied composition with prof. Andrzej Dobrowolski at Hochschule für Musik und darstellende Kunst in Graz, Austria 1976-83, where he also graduated in conducting in 1978-82 after studies with prof. dr. Milan Horvat.
Mr. Lönner has given a number of lectures on his own music in connection with performances of his works in Graz and Vienna. He also was a deputy lecturer in composition for prof. Robert Boury at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, USA in 1985. Towards the end of the 1980’ies he alternated living as a freelance composer in Vienna, Austria, and various states in the USA studying Indian music, shamanism and mysticism with a number of Indian shamans through the American Indian Centre of Arkansas.
In order to develop an alternative style of composition, he studied Greek philosophy and philiosophy of religion for one year at the University of Oslo, with the professors Torstein Tollefsen and Finngeir Hiorth. His main helper, friend and advisor was the hermit Oscar Hansen, who lived in a self built cottage in a forest outside Tønsberg. He lived like the gods, says the composer..
Lönner has been active as a conductor in Graz, Maribor, Vienna and Hamburg (1995-98). His works have been performed in Europe, mostly in Bucharest and Vienna, as well as Japan and Australia. Since 1998 he works in a municipal cultural school outside Tønsberg.
In addition to composing, Mr. Lønner is an author of novels, short stories, plays and librettos.
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