#20 · Simon Steen-Andersen: TRIO
“When I write orchestral music, I look for an idea that makes us listen to the orchestra in a whole new way, which I have a great opportunity for in the large format this project has. Instead of mixing orchestra, choir, and big band into one large ensemble, they will be treated as three individual instruments with their own unique voice, sound, and identity with the opportunity to reflect each other. This ‘trio’ expands with historical archive recordings of orchestras, choirs, and big bands so that the music can move freely between tone, style, and identity as well as back and forth in time.” - Simon Steen-Andersen
TRIO was premiered by the SWR Symphony Orchestra, the SWR Vocal Ensemble, and the SWR Big Band in 2019. The work won Simon Steen-Andersen the SWR Orchestra Prize 2019 and the Carl Prize 2020.
Find the three scores here >>
#19 · Ylva Lund Bergner: Euphorbia
Euphorbia is part of Ylva Lund Bergner’s flower series Flora. The title refers to the flower Euphorbia Plaustris, a poisonous plant that is beautiful and very common. The composer describes that in the piece she wanted to transform the effect the poison would have on a human if someone ate it.
The piece is performed here by the ensemble Mimitabu.
Find the score here >>
#18 · Nicolai Worsaae: Squawk
Squawk by Nicolai Worsaae is written for string quartet, video and electronics, and explores the tensions between live performance and fragmented replays.
The title refers to the squawk sound, described as short squeaks, a sound made by birds such as parrots. During the Apollo space expeditions in 1969-1972 the families of the astronauts had a radio transmitter connecting the families directly to the NASA space center in Houston. Due to its noisy and squeking sounds the transmitter was popularly known as The Squawk Box.
Squawk is performed by Arditti Quartet.
Find the score here >>
#17 · Rachel Yatzkan: Hathor (KhatKhor)
Rachel Yatzkan’s music is characterized by its physicality and decidedly sensual manifestation in sound. At the same time it is as intangible as the stuff that dreams and souls are made of.
Listen to Hathor (KhatKhor) performed by Poseidon Quartet in 2018.
Find the score here >>
#16 · Kasper Rofelt: Quintessence, étude no. 3 pour le piano
In 2008-2010 Kasper Rofelt wrote a series of etudes for piano dedicated to pianist David Lau Magnussen.
Find the scores for all four etudes here >>
#15 · Li-Ying Wu: Limbo - Between Humans
Li-Ying Wu's Limbo - Between Humans is a chamber opera inspired by the Danish writer Ole Sarvig’s 1963 novel. The libretto is written by the Russian writer Anna Plichkounova.
In the piece we encounter a character trying to find the balance between the outer, physical world – governed by rationality and facts -, and the inner world – governed by irrationality and emotions. The two singers represent these contradicting dimensions in one and the same person, gradually reaching a certain level of mutual understanding and balance. 'Limbo - Between Humans' was written for Århus Sinfonietta in 2010.
Find the score >>
#14 · Martin Stauning: After the Party a Feather Floats Beneath the Ceiling
The title of Martin Stauning’s piece is based on a tableau from Milan Kundera’s novel ‘The Festival of Insignificance’: After a party where the table is a mess and the ashtrays overflow, stains from the red wine on the white table cloth and napkins scattered over the chairs, you see a small light thing floating beneath the ceiling, as a contrast to the noise. It is calm after the storm.
The music in some parts sound like distorted line dancing, folkloric sawdust, attempts at 3-beat skips as at the party yesterday. This contrasted by a "mirror-music" light as a feather where quiet multiphonics and slightly moaning strings bring depth to the sound scape.
The piece was commissioned and premiered by Bellbird Chamber Orchestra.
Find the score >>
#13 · Line Tjørnhøj: enTmenschT
enTmenschT by Line Tjørnhøj is hard to capture in a well-known artistic form. It is not an opera, not really music theatre and not an art installation. It is a musical artwork that also unfolds visually - A concert installation.
enTmenschT was performed by Theatre of Voices and Paul Hillier, and was created in collaboration with visual artist Signe Klejs with costume design by Mads Dinesen and sound design by Morten Olsen.
Find the score here >>
#12 · Christian Winther Christensen: Concerto for a Movie Loop
Concerto for a Movie Loop is written for orchestra, piano and projection. On the screen Christian Winther Christensen playing the theme from the C minor prelude Op. 3, No. 2 by Rachmaninov is projected. The orchestra continuously plays alongside the pianist in loops that each last a minute or so but are constantly changing. Noise elements gradually take over from the regular sounds of the instruments as the piece develops.
The piece is performed by Copenhagen Phil, conducted by Baldur Brönnimann.
#11 · Mette Nielsen: Square #2
Mette Nielsen’s Square #2 is written for 7 percussionists. Each performer has an ipod with spoken instructions, and following the instructions they move from square to square as they are told where to go, what to do and what to play.
The piece was performed by Lydenskab in 2012.
#10 · Ejnar Kanding: Sensitive Shades
Sensitive shades by Ejnar Kanding is an independent part of the cycle 'Textures & Mosaics, volume 2'; a series of five pieces for string quartet exploring the ambient, static and aspects of gradual change. The pieces focus on long extended lines in a multi-layered structure and complex textures.
Performed by ACME: American Contemporary Music Ensemble's string quartet.
#9 · Rachel Yatzkan: A-Bio-Genesis
"What has attracted me by writing A-Bio-Genesis is how life arises and how organisms continue to reproduce themselves. There is no one who knows the answer, but in my compositional fantasy world, I am 4.7 billion years back in the middle of the repulsive primordial soup that existed on earth before the atmosphere came into being."
- Rachel Yatzkan about A-Bio-Genesis here performed by Tobias Dueholm, Johannes Søe Hansen, Stine Hasbirk Brandt and Ingemar Brantelid.
#8 · Lasse Schwanenflügel Piasecki: Gemmer mig for Rosetta
Lasse Schwanenflügel Piasecki's work explores the beauty of the insecurity that comes with doing something for the first time. It does so by having the solo clarinet part be played by a bassoonist.
The piece was premiered by the Athelas Sinfonietta in 2014 at the KLANG Festival in Copenhagen.
Find the score >>
#7 · Bára Gísladóttir: Music to accompany your sweet splatter dreams
On June 4th, 2019 Athelas Sinfonietta and Pierre-André Valade premiered Bára Gísladóttir: Music to accompany your sweet splatter dreams. The concert took place at KLANG festival in The Royal Danish Library.
#6 · Morten Ladehoff: AUTOMATERIA
"I try to compose a kind of illusion of the music as creating itself. I've used a technique - a sort of causality - where an impulse in the music starts a reaction." - Morten Ladehoff about AUTOMATERIA performed by Athelas Sinfonietta Copenhagen at KLANG - Copenhagen Avantgarde Music Festival 2018.
Find the score here >>
#5 · Ylva Lund Bergner: Sigh, R. Tilia!
Ylva Lund Bergner tells about the piece:
The title Sigh, R. Tilia! relates to the tree tilia cordata, or little-leaf linden. The inspiration was the memories of this type of tree and also pictures of light micrographs of a transverse section of the tree. The title came up when I played with the words and letters in the more formal scientific term for a transverse section of a little-leaf linden: Xylem Ray Tilia (Sigh, R. Tilia!)."
Sigh, R. Tilia! was commissioned by the STENHAMMAR QUARTET. Find the score here >>
#4 · Svend Hvidtfelt Nielsen: Alt imens (sommeren uafvendeligt går på hæld)
Alt imens was commissioned by Athelas Sinfonietta Copenhagen and premiered in 2018.
Svend Hvidtfelt Nielsen describes it as a small song for piano and ensemble. "The starting point was a small melancholy piano part derived from a single chord, that I was very captivated by," he says. "It is a polyphonic piece, and the other voices rise from the piano piece as independent movements, creating a counterpoint to it."
Find the score here >>
#3 · Li-Ying Wu: Ritournelle
Li-Ying Wu's "Ritournelle Rondo alla L’albatro vermicolato" was commissioned by Esbjerg Ensemble and premiered in 2018.
The title refers to the French dance in quick triple meter and the fascinating mating ritual of albatrosses. This bird has a highly developed mating dance, where perplexing gestures and sounds are repeated in ways which for us humans resembles a careful choreographed ritual. This ritual bird-dance, is surrounded by fast music in triple meter – a ritournelle.
Find the score here >>
#2 · Matias Vestergård Hansen: TRÆK
Quatuor Elmire performed the piece TRÆK by Matias Vestergård Hansen at the Carl Nielsen Chamber Music Competition in 2019. The composer describes the work as heavily inspired by the sounds of bird wings and cries, as well as the imagery of animals moving together in flocks.
Find the score here >>
#1 · Line Tjørnhøj: Hånden på hjertet
We will kick off the series in the company of DR Pigekoret and Phillip Faber performing Line Tjørnhøj's Hånden på hjertet.
The piece was performed in March 2020.