Dagny Bakken

Dagny Bakken started playing the violin at the age of nine. At the time she was already playing the piano, but her mother was keen for her to learn as much as possible about music, and found her daughter a violin teacher in their native Eidsvoll.

− In the first few years piano and violin were equally important, but the opportunities for ensemble playing made playing a string instrument very attractive after a while, she says.

When she was twelve, they moved to Halden, and from then on she focused on the violin.

− In Halden, there was a rich music life at the time, with varied possibilities for playing with string quartet, orchestra, piano trio and as a soloist with the local chamber orchestra.

I’ll never get tired of playing the second violin

After music studies in Norway and the United States, she made her debut as a soloist in Oslo in 1986. In the same year she was engaged by the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra. She is today a permanent member in the early music ensemble Barokkanerne. Ensemble playing remains a core aspect of her life as a musician:

− Good ensemble playing occurs when you listen to each other, give input and receive input; a dialogue where one gives and takes.

She thinks her job as a second violinist in the orchestra offers quite unique pleasures:

− I’ll never get tired of playing the second violin. We often play many important roles. Our voice is often placed in the middle of the chord, and in this way constitutes an important element in the harmonic structure of the music.

− When you close your eyes, you hear more

Her best advice for getting the most out of a concert is to close one’s eyes:

− When you close your eyes, you hear more. Then you aren’t focusing so much on the visual aspect and can listen with your heart; you can switch off the judging mechanism in your head together with any preconceptions. You can let yourself be filled without thinking “this is going to be difficult to understand.” Music surpasses intellectualism by a long way.

When Dagny isn’t playing, she enjoys running or skiing, perhaps bringing her dogs along.