Henrik Colding-Jørgensen graduated as organist from The Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen in 1966, and as organ pedagogue in 1967. In the early sixties he studied composition with the Danish composer, professor Vagn Holmboe. Later on he studied instrumentation, electroacoustics, computer programming, composition and various philosophic and psychological subjects on his own. Henrik Colding-Jørgensen was a teacher at København's Musikhøjskole 1967-70 of theory, solfège and organ. From 1969 till 1975 he taught musical theory at The Carl Nielsen Academy of Music in Odense. In 1975 he was appointed organist and choir leader at Hundige and Kildebrønde churches near Copenhagen.
His oeuvre inludes a number of orchestral works - with or without choir or soloists, - vocal and instrumental chamber music, choir music and works for amateur musicians. A series of his compositions are written in a personal, strictly structural style, inspired by Igor Stravinsky, Anton Webern, Alban Berg, György Ligeti and others; however, Colding-Jøgensen never employed serialism as such in his compositions. On the contrary, many of his works are characterized by a striving for structural firmness combined with expressive liberty. In a number of works from recent years he employs a technique of formal and temporal counterpoint, where each instrument or section of instruments plays its own tempo, the total musical structure controlled by exact tempo reactions and a number of cues.
Henrik Colding-Jørgensen recovered a bursary from the Danish State Art Foundation in the years 1969-72. He won composition prizes in 1969 (4 Preludes), 1970 (Albert), 1973 (Magnus) and Concours International Musicale Opera et Ballet de Genève 1985 (Nuup Kangerlua). 2 Songs by Keats, a duo for soprano and guitar, was selected for performance at the Nordic Music Days Festival 1990. Henrik Colding-Jørgensen was a member of the executive board of The Danish Composers Society 1981-91.
