Minimalist music for complex emotions.

Dutch composer and pianist Joep Beving’s reflective melodies are performed on an upright piano where the tactile, mechanical sounds of the physical piano – the hammer hitting the felt – is amplified and becomes part of the composition.

Beving was moved to compose music as a way to deal with stress, and to begin with he only performed for family and friends. When he published some of his recordings online in 2015, the melodies hit a nerve. Only a year later, the songs reached more than 85 million plays.

He is often mentioned alongside musicians such as Max Richter, Ólafur Arnalds, Hania Rani and Nils Frahm – the latter two have both perfomed at the Bergen International Festival in previous editions. The pianist himself includes Philip Glass, Arvo Pärt, Chopin, Radiohead and Mahler as sources of inspiration.

In 2025, Beving released Solipsism Redux, a decade after his debut album Solipsism. Before he enters the stage in Grieghallen, the pianist will have released a new album.

Image on top: Joep Beving. Photo: Rahi Rezvani