CAROLINE LEISEGANG
Releases
‘ØYEBLIKK: RECOMPOSED’
Ten years after her breakthrough debut album, Øyeblikk stunned the South African and international classical music scenes, acclaimed composer CAROLINE LEISEGANG returns to the world that first defined her artistry – with a bold, introspective, and profoundly moving ten-year anniversary edition: ‘ØYEBLIKK: RECOMPOSED’, available from all streaming platforms today.
Originally released in 2015 when CAROLINE was just 25 years old, Øyeblikk earned critical acclaim cementing her status as South Africa’s youngest and most promising classical composer at the time. The album debuted at #1 on the iTunes Classical Chart and went on to receive the iTunes Best of 2015 Award for Best Classical Album.
“I never thought the work was particularly good,” she reflects now, “but the idea that others would love it as much as they did was incredible to me. It was a surreal moment – one that changed everything.”
Now, with the passage of a decade, CAROLINE re-enters the world she first shaped with a new reimagining of her earliest compositions – she allows her original music to expand and mature with newfound confidence, restraint, and vulnerability.
ØYEBLIKK, which means ‘moments’ in Norwegian, has always been about capturing the ephemeral. As the tenth anniversary of her debut approached, CAROLINE felt a quiet pull to return to the work that had launched her; an invitation to re-encounter the girl she once was, to honour her beginnings, and to reframe those moments through the lens of a decade lived.
“The moments have changed, and I’ve always wanted Øyeblikk to grow when the time was right,” she explains. “I didn’t want it to remain frozen in 2015 – I wanted it to evolve alongside me.”
Rather than a simple rearrangement, ‘ØYEBLIKK: RECOMPOSED’ is a complete re-visioning. Five of the seven original pieces have been entirely rewritten. Only Forelsket remains unchanged, a quiet anchor to the past, while Rød Regndråper became the piece that unraveled the thread of reinvention.
CAROLINE stripped back the complexity of her younger self’s work, trading urgency for restraint, and weaving in new textures – most notably a felted piano, which lends the album a softened intimacy and emotional clarity allowing the silence between the notes to speak just as loudly as the music itself.
“If the original album was about capturing a moment,” says CAROLINE, “this one is the moment of now.”
Working once again with longtime producer and engineer Jacques du Plessis – the same engineer who recorded the original Øyeblikk in 2015 – CAROLINE found herself revisiting not only the music but the collaborative energy that shaped her early career.
“Back then, we were both exploring,” she recalls. “Now we’ve grown up together, in a way. Jacques makes the studio feel like a place of safety. He has the incredible ability to make the process feel effortless and purposeful – he guides you gently, and with so much respect for the music.”
In ‘ØYEBLIKK: RECOMPOSED’, CAROLINE LEISEGANG offers a rare gift: a time capsule re-opened with care, humility, and imagination. She transforms her compositions with new sensitivity, allowing the pieces to grow, unravel, and breathe in ways they never had before. This is not the closing of a chapter, but the continuation of one – with the same heart, shaped now by motherhood, illness, healing, and a decade of listening.
ØYEBLIKK: RECOMPOSED Track Listing:
1. Forelsket
2. Rød Regndråper
3. Karusell
4. Midnat
5. Drømme
6. Himmelen
7. Måneskinn
“We live in time, right? It almost feels like coming home.”
Stream ‘ØYEBLIKK: RECOMPOSED’ here:
https://vmgafrica.lnk.to/OYEBLIKKRECOMPOSEDAr
As one of the youngest classical composers in South African history at the time of her debut, CAROLINE’s career has seen five consecutive #1 classical albums, including 2024’s COMES THE NIGHT, and a growing reputation as one of the most compelling voices in modern classical music. With ‘ØYEBLIKK: RECOMPOSED’, she invites both new listeners and longtime fans to pause, reflect, and rediscover the beauty in impermanence.
CAROLINE LEISEGANG CONTACT
Website: https://carolineleisegang.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/CarolineLeisegang_Music
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@CarolineLeisegang
*Photos by Chloe O’Doherty.
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