“Music is so elevated that it is beyond the reach of intellect and there flows from it an influence which is all-potent, and which noone can explain.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Bjørn Breimo is a norwegian composer, pianist and music teacher, born 1958 in Sandnessjøen in northern Norway, and now living in Oslo. He studied piano, composition and pedagogy at the Norwegian State Academy of Music, and has since then been steadily active as a composer besides being employed as a teacher in music theory and piano at Foss High School.

He has had a number of performances of his own music for varied ensembles in different parts of the country. In 1987 he won 1st prize in a composer’s competition in connection with the initiation of an organ in Sola Church, with "Forløsning" (“Redemption”) for recitation, choir and organ, and he has had two studio-produced radio performances with the Norwegian Broadcasting Orchestra, with “Fantasia Sinfonica” (1988) and “Canto Eterno” (1994).

Among other important works are “Et facta est Lux” for soprano and five instruments, commissioned for the liberation anniversary in Narvik in 1995, and the large-scale “Te Deum” for choir and orchestra, written for Foss High School and premiered in 2008. Among his more recent works is "Between Silence" for recitation and piano, created in collaboration with the poet Anne Bøe, his beloved life companion, and performed at the Nordic Poetry Festival in Hamar in 2022.

Breimo’s early musical style is characterized by late romantic and expressionist features, but in the early 1990s, under the influence of composers such as arvo Pärt and John Tavener, there was a change to a more simplistic and meditative style, with minimalist and modal features. In later works one notices a combination of this style with traits from his earlier works.

In later years he also has created some electronic music, where he mixes traits from the ambient genre with compositional procedures known in classical music. And he has published several recordings with performances of classical music from various composers, both original piano compositions and his own transcriptions, and some tango music too.

Besides the musical activity he is a dedicated hobby photographer, specializing in landscape photography.

Some newspaper reviews:

"... a sonorously rich and exciting style, which may remind a little of Messiaen and other 20th century French music, but which is nevertheless original and exciting ... the work is well-written, effective and poignant, and the jury has undoubtedly found a worthy 1st prize winner.”

Stavanger Aftenblad (on "Forløsning / Redemption")

"Bjørn Breimo's "Et Facta est Lux" fascinates sonically and structurally ... a sparkle of light flows through the soundscape. Here we have a work of lasting value.”

Harstad Tidende