Helene Arntzen

Helene Arntzen was born in Oslo, Norway. She studied saxophone performance at the Royal Academy of Music in Norway and has composed and produced numerous film and TV soundtracks. In 1997 she received the Fondation de France’s prize for her documentary Médicins Sans Frontières! She has worked at the Théâtre de la Ville in Paris, at the Teatro García Lorca in Havana, the Teatro de la Villa in Madrid and at the Kremlin State Palace in Moscow. Many of her works and albums were created focusing on the poetry of Federico García Lorca, Pablo Neruda and Nazim Hikmet: these include Llanto por Ignacio Sánchez de Mejías – an oratorio by Vicente Pradal based on Lorca (director: Michel Rostain). In 2008 she founded Territoire Art & Creation (T.A.C.) in Paris – a complex including recording studios, studios and accommodation which offers artists from very different genres the opportunity to exchange ideas and develop projects. Most recently, she was on tour with her Helene Arntzen Quartet, a jazz quartet, performing Grieg in Blue – a tribute to the musician Edvard Grieg.