Håkon Kornstad

This saxophone is a voice. It has a great deal to say, especially in its tonal extremes—in overblows, in the rhythm of the key clicks, very close to the human voice. And then Håkon Kornstad actually uses his own voice, for he didn’t discover singing until later. In 2009, when he had long been one of Norway’s most prominent saxophonists and had been nominated multiple times for the Spellemannprisen, he began studying classical singing. In 2014, he earned a master’s degree from the Norwegian Opera Academy. Since then, a classical tenor with a Nordic timbre and a saxophone style that constantly pushes the instrument’s boundaries have stood side by side on equal footing. Everything is dedicated to a single goal—to penetrate to the very heart of what music has to say.

For Kornstad, “solo” means saxophone, flute, flutonette, voice, and live looping. The Guardian wrote that he had transformed something that could have been a circus act into a musical tour de force. The fact that he is now performing this at the Bleckkirche—Gelsenkirchen’s oldest church, built in 1735, featuring a Renaissance altar from 1574—is more than just a lovely idea. Here, a space that has been listening for centuries meets a musician who wants nothing else.