Winners of the 2026 Jazz Juniors Competition | Nils Petter Molvaer / Alva Noto

Nils Petter Molvaer – Born on the island of Sula, Molvaer was introduced to jazz already in his earliest childhood by his musician father. The local club scene kindled his enthusiasm for playing the instrument. However, rather than accepting the local horizon as his own, he left his homeland at age nineteen in search of new types of sound. He began by taking up studies. With time he became one of the most influential musicians in the Scandinavian jazz scene.

Performing in the Masqualero quintet was an important stage in his career. The quintet, named after a piece by Wayne Shorter, took off in the early 1980s and consisted of: Arild Andersen, Jon Christensen, Tore Brunborg, Jon Balke, and, naturally, Nils Petter Molvaer. It was as a member of Masqualero that Molvaer recorded his first album for the Munich-based ECM label, which was tantamount to entering the international music scene. Molvear soon gained a reputation as an excellent sideman much sought-after for his splendid technique, flexible imagination, great intuition and sensitivity. He performed with numerous artists in Norway and elsewhere. In the 1980s and 90s, he played, among others, in the bands of Jon Eberson, Marylin Mazur, Rita Marcotulli, Dennis González, and Lars Danielsson. The diversity of the music he performed with these and other bandleaders gives an impression of his versatile talent.

The real breakthrough, however, came slightly later, with his first fully original album Khmer, released in 1997, which may well be considered as a turning point in Molvaer’s career. Hailed by reviewers as ‘surely the most unusual album ever released by ECM’, it represents a daring combination of jazz improvisation and club culture, blending powerful breakbeat drive with sampling and the colours of the musician’s own instrument. With this release, the Norwegian trumpeter proved that by drawing on current musical trends and vogues one may create a visionary work which is at the same time rooted in a specific period and much ahead of its time. In the creative decades that followed, Molvaer never turned back from the path he had taken on his debut album.

With charming agility and genuine bravado, his successive albums have combined Nordic precisions and chill with the hot sounds of ethnic music, at the same time boldly exploring ever new areas of electronic sound. As if by the way, Molvaer has repeatedly proved that the combination of live instruments with production work opens up virtually unlimited possibilities. While remaining original and recognizable, the artist has never ceased exploring new ground, thus becoming a major source of inspiration for successive generations of artists. His impact on the improvised music scene is discernible to this day in recordings by even the youngest jazz musicians.

Alva Noto – Carsten Nicolai (born 1965 in Karl-Marx-Stadt, Germany) lives and works in Berlin. Inspired by scientific reference systems, Nicolai explores mathematical patterns such as grids and codes, error and random structures, as well as the phenomenon of self-organisation. In doing so, he continually breaks down the boundaries between various artistic genres.

Following his participation in documenta X (1997) and the 49th and 50th Biennale di Venezia (2001 and 2003), his works have been included in important private and public collections and presented in national and international exhibitions in renowned museums and galleries. These include major solo exhibitions at Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt (anti reflex, 2005), Neue Nationalgalerie Berlin (syn chron, 2005), Berlinische Galerie (tele, 2018), Kunstsammlungen Nordrhein-Westfalen (parallax symmetry, 2019) and Haus der Kunst München (transmitter / receiver – the machine and the gardener, 2022).

Under the pseudonym Alva Noto, Nicolai is one of the best-known representatives of contemporary electronic music. Concerts have taken him to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Centre Pompidou in Paris and the Tate Modern in London. His various musical projects include collaborations with Ryōji Ikeda, Mika Vainio, Iggy Pop, Blixa Bargeld and Ryūichi Sakamoto. With the latter, Nicolai composed the music for Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Oscar-winning film The Revenant, which was nominated for a Golden Globe, a BAFTA and a Grammy in the Best Original Score category.

Nicolai has received numerous awards and scholarships, including Giga Hertz Prize (2012, with Ryoji Ikeda); Villa Massimo, Rome (2007); Zurich Art Prize (2007); Villa Aurora, Los Angeles (2003); Prix Ars Electronica (2000 and 2001, with Marko Peljhan); Grand Prize Japan Media Arts Festival (2014).

Since 2015, Nicolai has held a professorship for art with a focus on digital and time-based media at the Dresden University of Fine Arts.