What Daniel Herskedal Has Learnt, Ten Albums and a Decade On
After ten years of recording, composing, and reshaping the role of the tuba, Herskedal reflects on growth, surprise, and the road ahead.
In 2015, Daniel Herskedal released Slow Eastbound Train, an album that set the course for his next decade of growth, innovation, and discovery.
The album marked his first collaboration with Edition, introducing a sound that blended cinematic landscapes, improvisation, folk lyricism, and an almost orchestral ambition. At the time, Herskedal, pianist Eyolf Dale, and percussionist Helge Andreas Norbakken had rehearsed together only once before entering the studio. “We were well prepared,” Herskedal recalls, “but none of us really knew what for.” Listening back now, he’s struck not just by the vivid memories of the session but by the sheer scale of what they attempted: threading together trio improvisations with overdubbed strings, inventing a musical language that hadn't yet fully revealed itself to them.
Since then, Herskedal’s journey has been defined by bold leaps and quiet evolutions. Each album, whether the windswept solo meditations of Call for Winter, the collaborative intensity of Out of the Fog, or his latest Movements of Air, has extended the possibilities of what his music can be. He credits Slow Eastbound Train and The Mistral Noir in particular for setting a creative foundation: projects that proved ambition and honesty could coexist, even when working with unconventional lineups or minimal production.
“The Mistral Noir defined what I want to sound like. It’s a completely honest piece, and the fact that it resonated with so many listeners, artists, choreographers, film / theater directors and dancers gave me confidence to move forward.”
Across ten albums, Herskedal has reimagined what it means to be a brass player. The tuba, once considered heavy and earthbound, became through him an instrument capable of breath-like phrasing, nimble ornaments, and unexpected lightness. Although he remains diligent in maintaining the physical demands of the instrument, his identity today feels broader: shaped as much by composers, nature, and injustice as by technique. “I think only about sound now, about music itself,” he says. “The tuba is a tool, but it’s not the point.”
In Movements of Air, his latest release, Herskedal draws from everything he has learnt, the patience of solo performance, the empathy of collaboration, the precision of composition for film and orchestra. If Slow Eastbound Train captured a young artist daring to imagine new forms, Movements of Air reveals a musician fully in command of his tools, willing to trust silence, fragility, and space as much as melody and motion. “I used to be careful about staying too long in the fragile moments,” he says. “Now, I let them be.”
There is no false modesty in his reflection, only a quiet certainty born from experience. He still dreams of composing a full symphony without soloists, an ambition sparked when he was 17, but recognises that time, patience, and honest growth are part of the same arc. “Things change faster than ever,” Herskedal says. “I’m careful about predicting the future. I just know that whatever happens, it has to be real.”
In a world often chasing speed and volume, Herskedal’s music offers something rarer: a space where listeners can lose track of time, breathe differently, and step into a sound-world shaped by curiosity, discipline, and heart.