Namida was written as a personal response to the terrible earthquake that hit the east coast of Japan 11th of March 2011. Usually, I don't find it appropriate to write music in such circumstances but this time was different as I had several Japanese friends studying together with me at the Grieg Academy. I sat down at the piano and played the main motive. The rest came naturally.

The weeks and months after the incident the Japanse students helped organize several support concerts, all called "Pray for Japan", in Bergen and my short little piano piece was performed at several of them. I was happy that such a small gesture from myself could mean something for my friends and that I could if only in a small way, contribute to help the victims in Japan.

The piece was also performed at the Norwegian Embassy in Japan by pianist Miki Ambo the same year.

In 2015 I made two arrangements of the piece, a version for guitar and a version for orchestra. The guitar version has been performed several times by Ole Martin Huser-Olsen.