Tine Thing Helseth: Hot Property

Classic FM meets the brilliant Tine Thing Helseth, a wonderful young artist with the rare gift of touching her audiences' hearts.

Because of a certain British trumpet player whose name begins with Alison and ends with Balsom, the prospect of a brilliant young female excelling on the instrument doesn’t seem as novel to us in the UK as it might have 10 years ago. 

But there are plenty of things to get excited about when trumpeting Classic FM’s Hot Property, and not because of her gender or age. Rather, because she plays the trumpet with a degree of finesse and individuality that takes the breath away. Tine Thing Helseth (that’s pronounced Tina Ting) is one of those rare performers who makes you feel, as an audience member, as though she’s playing just for you – as if there’s nobody else in the room. It’s partly the instant clarity and beauty of her tone, and partly her earnest, committed delivery. 

“I wanted first of all to master the instrument, to be technically so good that I could leave that aside and focus on putting myself, as a person, into the music,” she says when quizzed on what seems a very distinctive sound. “I make music, and I just happen to do that on a trumpet… it could be anything else really.” 

Maybe. But getting such subtlety out of a coiled up piece of metal – such shades of understatement, gregariousness, contemplation, joy and vitality – takes a very special talent and years of growth. Tine has always had the trumpet in her life; her mother plays the instrument and a family friend was Ole Edvard Antosen, a well-known trumpeter in Norway. 

“I just really wanted to be like him, you know? I wanted to travel around and play. And here I am. That’s basically how it feels – it just happened.” 

And travelling around she is. We’re sure to be seeing rather more of Tine in the future, as she’s recently signed to major UK management company IMG. In the meantime there’s her wonderfully productive relationship with Norway’s national record label, Simax, which has already produced two notably different CDs: Baroque concertos on one; arrangements of well-known Christmas tunes on the other. Both, like Tine, will enchant. 

HOT FACTS 

Studied at the Barratt Due Music Institute in Oslo with Arnulf Naur Nilsen. Named ‘Best And Most Interesting Artist 2007’ by Germany’s Kissinger Festival Founded, and now runs a 10-piece all female brass ensemble, Ten Thing 

HEAR HER ON

Haydn, Albinoni, Neruda, Hummel Concertos
In the Neruda Concerto the scales flow like double cream; in the slow movements Tine’s trumpet has sublime delicacy.
AM Simax PSC 1292