KNUT EIDE HAUGSOEN

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KNUT EIDE HAUGSOEN Son of Olav Haugsoen and Britt Margit Eide, born on April 2, 1935 in Bergen, Norway. Died January 17, 2011, Winnipeg, MB. Accomplished jazz composer and architect Knut Eide Haugsoen has died at the height of his musical career. He was 75 and set to release a new CD. Knut was born from a line of Scandinavian artists and inventors. His great-grandmother founded the first opera company in Oslo. One of his grandmothers was an actress, the other a painter. His great-grandfather founded Norway's second largest newspaper and his father, a naval captain, wrote texts on naval engineering that are still used in schools. Art and invention were in him. As a child, Knut became fascinated with American jazz music. He listened to the recordings of American jazz legends at night, slept on his desk during the day, and languished in school. With no formal piano training he learned to play by ear and performed in bands around Bergen. In 1956, after high school and compulsory military training, Knut travelled to Munich to study architecture at the Technische Hochschule Munchen. He funded his studies by playing nightly at the Night Owl jazz club. The club, situated in the well-known lively bohemian neighbourhood of Schwabing exposed him to an international crowd of artists, musicians and intellectuals and an endless stream of notable American players. Music replaced sleep, however, and completing the gruelling architectural program in a foreign language was a feat. He returned to Bergen in the summer to work for the famous Norwegian architect Konow Lund. Upon graduation Knut, accompanied by his new wife Ellen Lyng Nielsen, also an architect, returned to Oslo where he worked from 1964 to 1967 on large-scale architectural projects. Without a piano he practiced at a local school. The draw of American Jazz lingered, however, and he cast his eyes across the ocean to the world renowned Chicago architectural firm of Mies Van Der Rohe, where he landed a position. It was a bold move. Between 1967 and 1973, Knut worked feverishly, in another foreign language, on high-rises and public buildings amidst Chicago's rat race. It was a life far from the picturesque Norwegian fjiords, and there was little music in it. With the demands of an architect's professional career, and no piano, he could not play. The marriage was also unravelling, and Knut returned to Norway alone to practice architecture for a year. A book of poetry produced during this time was an outlet for his creative energy and sorrow. He claimed this period almost killed him. In 1973 Knut accepted a university professorship at the School of Architecture Masters Program at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg. His architectural work was functional and creative and his knowledge about engineering and construction details surpassed that of most architects. He remained in Canada for the next 38 years teaching architectural design and producing the bulk of his exquisite compositions. Knut was widely read, scouring texts from Ouspensky and Nietzsche to Karl Popper and Edgar Cayce. He published academic writings on composition and design, and his voracious appetite for knowledge led him to workshops seemingly everywhere on everything. A metaphysics workshop in the 1970s introduced him to the teachings of Baba Muktananda, a Siddha yoga master from Ganeshpuri, India who would be his guru from then on. The name of Knut's band - Vikrama (one of full prowess, courage or daring) - was a name Baba gave him. He visited and lived at the Siddha meditation centre in New York in the mid 1970s and meditation became a daily practice. In 1980, during a sabbatical at Berkley, California, Knut studied African music, earned a second masters degree in Architecture, played regularly at local clubs, and wrote about the relationship between music and architecture. After a number of fits and starts, his marriage to Ellen Neilson finally ended around 1980 and Knut acquired, and found refuge in, one of the smallest houses in Winnipeg, on Fleet Avenue. He remarried, his new wife Mary Subedar, a Trinidadian architect, and they shared 26 years of intense love, laughter and art that overcame the 30 years that spanned between them. Together they massaged the tiny Fleet Avenue house into a creative production space. The most important element was the piano studio. The rest of the world was in orbit around it. In Winnipeg, Knut performed jazz at a time when there was virtually no audience, but, as usual, context did not diminish his creative energy. While teaching architectural design, he produced a wealth of original compositions and recordings. His four CDs are a culmination of years of music performance and study coupled with the practice of architecture. The compositions are spacious and rich, highly original, and his architectural knowledge lent a noticeable structural complexity. His work bridged the gap between classical and jazz music, a space that few understood because it was uncategorizable. And getting players to learn and play the music was always problematic because one could not just jam . The music had to be studied and rehearsed. Knut applied in music what he practiced in architecture: organizing form and space through structure, rhythm, layering, and many other principles, and this two-sided career put his music in a league by itself. And the music was intense. Knut never played or wrote anything he did not mean. The first recorded tunes were guttural and imaginative, and his work remained consistently good. It lured world-class artists to Winnipeg to work with him, enriching the community and local players with a steady influx of talent. His material was worthy of the best; no artist ever refused his projects. "Hands On" his first album, with its nine original gutsy compositions recorded in 1988, was engineered by ECM's legendary Jan Erik Kongshaug. His third album "Step and A Half", played by Canada's finest musicians, was nominated for a Canadian Juno Award. Knut also wrote music for and performed with the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, and he improvised live music for film. Set against the physical limitation of a tremendously weak heart, his achievements were even more remarkable. He leapt through time, space, and languages to follow music and art, and the distinct philosophy of living with which both were intertwined. Knut was also athletic and striking and women worshipped him throughout his life, while he took little notice. Many wanted to know more about this man often described as mysterious, private, special, and even reclusive. His otherworldliness emanated from within. An unselfconscious inwardness directed his attentions towards an expansive world of creativity where ego was absent, speaking was unnecessary and music filled the universe. Music, he said, connects me to the world. Still, he was generous, loved life, and seemed to touch even those who passed briefly through his domain. A community mourns the passing of this extraordinary man. A Tribute will be held at the Winnipeg Art Gallery on Monday, April, 18, 2011 at 7:00 p.m. where Knut's final CD will be released. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the Siddha Yoga Meditation Centre at 1820 Arlington St., Winnipeg, MB. R2X 1W4. All proceeds of the 2011 CD sales will be donated to the Siddha Centre. Visit www.vikrama.com for more on Knut.

As published in Winnipeg Free Press on Feb 12, 2011