Artist: Ole Morton Vagen

Ole Morton Vagen is a Norwegian jazz musician and composer (upright bass), and the older brother of guitarist Petter Vågan. He is known from several recordings and is currently artistic director for the Trondheim Jazz Orchestra. Vågan is also known from cooperating with some of the most influential musicians and composers internationally, and has released eight albums as a leader, recently with the TJO (Happy Endlings, Odin records 2018), as well as six albums with his group Motif and one with the group The Deciders. 

Vågan was born in Brønnøysund, and began his career as a jazz musician in the Nord-Norsk Ungdomstorband at the end of the 1990s and launched his own project "Ole Morten Vågan Projekt" on tour for Nordnorsk Jazzforum in 1999.

In 1999 he formed the quintet Motif, together with  Atle Nymo (tenor saxophone),  Mathias Eick  (trumpet), David Thor Jonsson (piano) and Håkon Mjåset Johansen  (drums), where he composes the main part of the repertoire himself. In 2000 Vågan lead the band Motif at Moldejazz and was awarded "NOPA's Composer Prize" the same year, as well as "Young Nordic Jazzcomets" the year after, at Copenhagen Jazz Festival.