TWith a busy international concert schedule and a number of acclaimed discs, Oystein Baadsvik has made a name for himself as one of today's finest tuba players, as well as an indefatigable and imaginative advocate for the instrument. His first disc, Tuba Carnival, was described on the website Classics Today as a 'perfectly executed recital in which humor, charm, and virtuosity combine to make the best possible case for the tuba as star of the show' while the reviewer in International Record Review found that his playing on the disc Danzas 'combines sweetness with strength, intensity with perception'. His wide-ranging repertoire includes works by composers as diverse as Elgar, Kalevi Aho and Piazzolla, but on this new disc he still manages to surprise with his versatility. Plans for it originated some ten years ago, when Baadsvik was touring with the Norwegian jazz pianist and composer/arranger Erlend Skomsvoll. Touring in Norway by necessity entails getting across any number of fjords and it was during one of the innumerable ferry crossings that Baadsvik and Skomsvoll hit upon the idea of a disc with music which shouldn't be confined to any particular genre, composed and arranged by the two of them for tuba, piano and strings. After a long period of gestation, here is the result: 'Ferry Tales' – a disc which combines original compositions with imaginative and unexpected arrangements of classics such as Somewhere Over the Rainbow and Alexander Borodin's Prince Igor. Baadsvik's tuba and Skomsvoll's piano are joined by the Trondheim Soloists, the acclaimed string ensemble here playing a role which goes far beyond that of simply providing accompaniments.