Arne Hiorth is a norwegian jazz trumpeter who loves to work with international projects.

He has recorded with top acts in Norway, like Mari Boine, Bjørn Eidsvåg, Anja Garbarek , Oslo Groove Company (Spellemann Award for Jazz- The Norwegian Grammy ) , Norwegian Broadcast Radio Big Band . 

Released his first solo album in 2004 , 7 Oliphaunt Images , including top musicians like Eivind Aarset, Kjetil Bjerkestrand , Hallgrim Bratberg , Marian Lisland , Oddrun Eikli ,          Anne-Marie Giørtz , Knut Anders Sørum , and Ottar Nesje. 

Arne Hiorth has a long history with music projects in South Africa, oa the Song of Freedom musical about Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu , performed in Cape Town and Oslo in march 2006. 

From 2007-2011 he was the project leader and musical director of North Sea Big Band - an international big band with a mix of pro's and students, who performed 3 years in a row at Standard Bank Youth Jazz Festival in South Africa.

In december 2007 he released the duet album SNOW with Helge Nysted, and has been touring London, Berlin, Reykjavik, Aarhus, Stockholm, Alicante, Venezia and New York with this project .

In 2010 he released  Loops and Bridges - a pop/jazz/ambient project with singer/songwriter Oddrun Eikli 

In 2011 he released !Khwa ttu - Music that floats from afar - a San music project involving  Eivind Aarset , Kjetil Bjerkestrand , Tebogo Tshotetsi, Sepanya Mahlangu ,Oddrun Eikli and Ottar Nesje .

In 2012 came The Kingdom Within - duo project with the great argentine musician Ulises Labaronnie.

In the last years he has been working a lot with musicians in Reykjavik and Veneto, writing new music and performing at festivals. 

Feb 1st 2022 his latest album will be released: !Xhole Kae -This Land

New Album 

!Xhole Kae-THIS LAND

The basis of this album is the wonderful traditional music of the San.

The hunter-gatherer ancestors of the San have lived in Southern Africa since the origins of modern humans.

The archaeology traces San clearly back 10 000 years , and their ancestors back 150 000 - 200 000 years.

The San have greater genetic diversity than any other peoples on earth - this means that they retain the diversity from the earliest times that other peoples have lost.

This indicates that they are linked to the earliest peoples and then did not move or mix as much as other peoples.

 Their traditional music is therefore unique- as it holds elements of the oldest songs ever made on our planet .

On Heritage Day sept 2019 we recorded the ladies of the choir !Xanu !Xe  singing and doing handclaps at the festival weekend at the San center !Khwattu near Cape Town .

One month later  one of the members of the choir, Marlene Makina , laid down a lot of raw vocals recorded on my portable studio equipment.

The rest of the production has been  done in 5 different studios in Norway and South Africa

Most of the songs Marlene sings in her native San language , are traditional tunes she learned from her mother- a lot of the lyrics describing how the San lost their land in Botswana and Namibia,  and were forced to move to different parts of South Africa .