Gaute Solaas

Gaute recorded regularly for the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation as a child, and received commissions for orchestral scores while still a teen. At 19 he turned professional and toured with Norwegian contemporaries like Erlend Skomsvoll (Chick Corea, Pat Metheny), Eivind Opsvik (Tony Malaby, Bill Frisell) and many more.

In 1995 he was accepted to the elite Eastman School of Music as a composer on scholarship. Being drawn to the Big Apple since childhood he first studied at Eastman upstate New York for two years before transferring to The Steinhardt School at NYU, in New York City. Gaute soon found himself freelancing in Manhattan with his American "brethren". During this time he played regularly with the Teo Macero Big Band, avant-garde trumpeter Shane Endsley, local pop icon Paul Cote and many more.

Coming up through the uniquely fertile music environment of his native Norway, Gaute peeks over the shoulders of true pioneers like Jan Garbarek, Arild Andersen, Jon Christensen and Terje Rypdal, who all helped contemporize American jazz and craft a uniquely Scandinavian canon all at once. Yet, Gaute early on developed a voice all his own, an amalgamation of European and American art and folk music, with musical feet on both sides of the ocean.

Awards

Terje Edgar Erlandsens Minnepris (1992), Lillehammer Bys Kulturpris (1995), NYU Undergraduate Composer of the Year 1998, Recipient of the Jack Kreiselman Award (1998).

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