When people ask about my music, I sometimes compare it to peeling an onion, although I adjust the metaphor depending on my audience. My approach strips things down to their essence: chords and sequences in their simplest, most unembellished form. There’s something both strikingly immediate and deeply recognizable in that rawness.
I grew up loving Mahler, Ravel, Bach, Mozart and many others.
Their music works differently. They are maximalists where I might be a minimalist, covering far more harmonic territory with sequences that are intricate and surprising. Their music tells a story through harmony itself, moving you through different moods and scenes. I’m often content with something much simpler, a single triad, voiced just right, set in the perfect context. But that context is everything!
The real challenge lies in building the framework: creating an internal logic that’s coherent enough to guide the listener yet subtle enough to feel natural. It needs the strength to support a genuine emotional journey, especially the profound experience of musical return and recognition.
Photography somehow achieves this with extraordinary efficiency. How it creates that intricate system of memory and meaning with such economy is something I’m still trying to understand and translate into musical terms.
Then again, maybe I’m overthinking it. Sometimes music is just music.
Perhaps rather than viewing art as a linear march toward progress with certain fancy pioneers leading the charge and their followers trailing behind, I imagine it as an ever-growing sphere. Its surface holds countless points where ideas intersect and connect. Composers of all kinds, including the most experimental, trace lines across this sphere, each responding in their own way to the challenge of the empty page.
There will always be another empty page.
Programme Bio
As a Sámi born New Zealander, Bjørn Arntsen’s music often blends Sámi syntaxes, rhythms and repetitions found in Joik with Māori vocabulary and has a strong focus and connection with mana whenua- indigenous land rights. He often blends the tradition of American minimalism with outside influences that include electronic dance music, hip-hop and alternative rock.
Born in Tromsø, Norway and educated in London, New York and New Zealand.
Bjørn also has an extensive background as a composer, pianist, recording engineer, editor and producer. His productions aim to bridge the gap between minimalist composers such as Reich, Glass and Pärt with the pioneering electronic music of Brian Eno, Kraftwerk, Aphex Twin and the Prodigy. The result is a body of work that encompasses music for television, film, theatre and the concert hall.
In August 2025, Atoll Records released Bjørn’s debut album, Bàrru, containing many of his works for chamber ensemble.
His compositional portfolio include works for chamber ensembles, string orchestra, concertos and an opera adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s, A Doll’s House.
Get in touch? Email is best: bjorn@bjornarntsen.com
PS. RNZ Concert interviewed Bjørn on August 19th, 2025 about his album, Bàrru, upcoming premiere of Mārū and his PhD research into stuck music syndrome also known as, earworms. .
https://www.rnz.co.nz/concert/programmes/three-to-seven/audio/2019000456/getting-rid-of-the-earworm