Paul Okkenhaug

About Paul Okkenhaug

Paul Okkenhaug was a Norwegian composer and organist, born on 30 June 1908 in Frol, in what was then Nordre Trondhjems amt, and active until his death on 30 November 1975. The son of the children's author Sigrun Okkenhaug, he trained as an organist at the Oslo Conservatory of Music from the age of twenty and later studied composition with Bjarne Brustad, David Monrad Johansen and Geirr Tveitt. Okkenhaug combined his musical career with farming at Øvre Okkenhaug and worked as organist, church choir director, pianist and teacher, taking up the post of organist at Levanger Church in 1949, which he held for the rest of his career. A composer's stipend awarded in 1946 allowed him to spend time studying in Copenhagen. 

His music, written in a national, late-Romantic idiom coloured by impressionist touches, drew heavily on Norwegian folk melody and traditional church modes. Okkenhaug is best remembered for his incidental music to Spelet om Heilag Olav (The Play of St Olav), which premiered on 29 July 1954 and became closely associated with the annual Olav festivities in Trøndelag, as well as for the Levanger Cantata (1936), written to mark the centenary of the town of Levanger. His output extended across orchestral, choral, theatrical, chamber and vocal music, establishing him as a significant regional Norwegian composer of the twentieth century.