Gaute Storaas

Gaute Storaas (born 20 August 1959) is a Norwegian jazz musician (bass) and composer, and the older brother of jazz pianist Vigleik Storaas.

Storaas was born in Bergen and became well known for his innovative bass playing on the local rock and jazz scene. He started studies on the University of Bergen (political science and music). He attended Berklee College of Music, Boston, in 1984, and got his diploma in Arranging in 1986. Returned to Norway, (Oslo) and did all kinds of writing work. Arranging for shows, broadcasting, recording sessions, composing for commercials, commissioned films, TV idents, etc. Also found some time for music of his own, and won the Danish Radio Orchestra competition for younger composers in 1989, with the work "Ouverture #2".

Best known is probably all the ident music for the launch of TV2, the biggest commercial TV channel in Norway, in 1992.

The last decade, time has been split between composing for film and TV, and orchestral arranging for many of the most popular Norwegian artists. Internationally known are, among others, acts as diverse as the black metal band Dimmu Borgir, the singer Sissel Kyrkjebø, (the wordless voice of Titanic,) and young classical trumpet virtuoso Tine Thing Helseth.

Most recent film score is for the animated feature Elias and the Treasure of the Sea, which won the Nordic Film Composers Award 2011. The previous score, for The Royal PortKids and the TV series that it was based on, Abdias: The Little Tugboat, (nominated for Emmy 2006), was given the Edvard Prize 2007, TONOs prestigious composer award.

In 2007 Storaas composed a full-blown orchestral score for the animated feature Elias and the Royal Yacht. (Nominated for best Norwegian filmscore 2007) Prior to that, scored the TV series Elias, the little Rescue Boat, which was nominated for Emmy, and is sold to about 15 countries. The CD with music from the show was nominated for Spellemannprisen, (the Norwegian grammy) 2011. Scored movies as diverse as the romantic comedy The Woman of my Life, and the dark documentary Boomerang, (about police violence.)

Best known work is probably all the ident-music for the launch of TV2, the biggest commercial TV channel in Norway, back in 1992. Most of it ran for 12 years, and some is still on the air. A new, continuing series of high-profile idents started in 2003.

Music for a lot of short films, industrials, computer games, theatre music, occasional concert pieces and around 200 TV-commercials (most all of them in the first part of the 1990s).

Extensive arranging work, mainly string or orchestral, for the recordings of many of the most popular Norwegian artists. Some that may be known internationally are the rock acts Dimmu Borgir and Turbonegro, Sissel Kyrkjebø, M2M, Espen Lind and the musical Sophies World. A lot of arranging for the 52 member Norwegian Radio Orchestra, for concerts and TV-productions.

On TONO's (the Norwegian equivalent of PRS) board of musical experts from 1996 to 2005. Chairman for 4 years. Norwegian representative of FFACE (Federation of Film and Audiovisual Composers of Europe.)