Svend Aaquist is a composer and conductor with numerous works and extensive concert activities behind him. He was at the Institute of Musicology at the University of Copenhagen as well as the Academy of Music studying piano, conducting and singing. He was a member of the Danish Music Council, chairman the Young Composers' Society as well as being an active member of the Danish Composers' Society. Svend Aaquist was the leader of the Esbjerg Ensemble and the West Jutland Symphony Orchestra; he co-founded and managed the Storstrøm Chamber Orchestra as well as being the conductor of the Storstrøm County Symphony Orchestra. Besides, Svend Aaquist has been engaged as the conductor of most Danish symphony orchestras, the Royal Danish Orchestra and the Other Opera, where he mainly conducted contemporary and new music. Abroad he conducted the West German elite chamber orchestra Ensemble Modern.
As a composer Svend Aaquist covers a large scope of genres: he was inspired by such diverse composers as Schönberg, Stockhausen, Cage and Penderecki as well as Danish composers such as Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen, Ib Nørholm and Per Nørgård. From the mid-80s onward he has also been a pioneer in using computers in music; a fact which was manifested in a number of his own works and in the "computer-performer group" Netværk (Network), where he performed with fellow composers Ivar Frounberg, Fuzzy and Wayne Siegel.
