organist (Wim Kamp, Dutch organist, composer and photographer)

Overview
General aspects of working as an organist in Norway may be:

Playing at weddings, funerals and services on Sundays and also during week days, for example at the hospital. The liturgy is Lutheran.

Working with choirs, ensembles, and with local people, both professional musicians (if there are any) and amateurs. Organising concerts and special music services. Concerts may be played by the organist himself or he can have a more organizing role.

In addition to these more or less standard elements, I have the opportunity to compose.

Usually the organist has his own desk at the church office, he joins in weekly staff meetings and he makes the preparations for musical aspects of the services in co-operation with the priest(s).

Sometimes this is a full-time job, but if it's not, there is often an additional job as a teacher in the local music school.

Although the Norwegian Church (being state church) has got more internal autonomy since 1997, the working conditions continue to be based on the municipal conditions of employment.

My churches
The churches that belong to my job are:

Sør-Vågsøy church (picture below) Some info on this church: it is situated in Måløy, built as a "long church" of timber in 1907, architect A.L. Sølvberg from Utvik. 500 seats.

Totland chapel (picture below) situated in the Nordfjord, 20 km from the see. "Long church", built in 1912 by the same architect. 200 seats. (picture below) The people living here belonged originally to a parish across the fjord. They travelled by rowboat to church. Fatal accidents in bad weather urged them to build their own church.

I have a full-time job as a cantor/organist in Vågsøy Kommune, working for the Norwegian Church

On this page you can find information about working as an organist in Norway, and see pictures both of the exterior and the interior of the to churches where I play the organ.

Drawing by W. J. Alberts †

Organs
The organs in these churches are presented in the section "My instruments"

More information
More information on general aspects about being an organist in the Norwegian Church can be found on the home pages of the Norwegian organists association, Norsk Kantor og Organistforbund (Norwegian only) and the Church of Norway (Den norske kirke) (English and Norwegian)

Som links
- General information about Norwegian church music by Harald Herresthal
- Church musician Trond Kverno

Help with playing the soundclips and using the PDF-files
can be found in the Technical info section