Morten Eide Pedersen (1958–2014) was a composition teacher, composer, musicologist, and writer. After completing a master’s degree in musicology at the University of Oslo with a minor in philosophy and sociology, as well as secondary disciplines in mathematics and informatics, he studied composition at the Norwegian Academy of Music. In 1989 he was employed at the Grieg Academy, University of Bergen, where from 1996 he created and led Norway’s second full-time program in composition. He was also a supervisor for the Norwegian Artistic Research Program.
As a teacher and supervisor, Morten Eide Pedersen had an ability to support and challenge students, while at the same time aiding in the development of their own individual, artistic voices. Both pedagogically and in his own artistic work, he was concerned with tradition’s influence on the creative; of how the past can produce a methodological resource for today’s artists. He was particularly interested in the relationship between text, sound, and language, and composed score-based music, live electronics, computer-assisted music, and more open forms.
As a composer, Morten Eide Pedersen has written music for, or has been commissioned by, among others, Concerts Norway/Music in Nordland, The National Theater – Bergen, BIT20 Ensemble, Music Factory, Tromsø Chamber Orchestra, and the concert series Avgarde. He has collaborated with many performers, among them pianists James Clapperton and Signe Bakke.
Pedersen was also an active writer, communicator, and musicologist. He was editor of the music magazine Ballade for five years and editor of a volume on new music within a book series and research project on Norwegian music history, (1999–2001. Modernism and Diversity) published by Aschehoug publishing house in 2001. He was also a central force in establishing Grieg Academy’s “Wheels within Wheels” (2015–2018), a project where research teams for both early music and composition collaborated to develop new forms of expression.