In recent years, Mads Emil Dreyer has distinguished himself both in Denmark and internationally as one of the most refined composers in Denmark today, with a strong and distinctive musical language - a composer whose works not only unfold in time but establish spaces that listeners can step into.
A central dimension of Dreyer’s work is the tension between the acoustic and the electronic. With equal fascination for violins and knobs, he works with sampling, processing, and feedback as ways of “hacking” into the sound of instruments and expanding them from within.
Mads Emil Dreyer’s music is marked by a particular sense of calm and clarity. Simple structures, repetition, and slow metamorphoses form the basis of works that can often be experienced as contemplative spaces. Here, the listener can both follow a gradual development and become absorbed in seemingly static yet vibrant sonic textures.
Ideas unfolded in series
A characteristic feature of Dreyer’s practice is his work in series. Groups of works such as Miniature, Forsvindere, Figure, and Lys function as investigations of delimited ideas—whether aesthetic, technical, or sonic.
As he himself has formulated it, the series format allows an idea to unfold in chapters rather than in a single, unified work. Each piece becomes part of a larger inquiry, driven forward by a persistent curiosity. In the Miniature series, for example, he explores an organic integration of electronics into instruments, while the Figure works take the form of small musical rituals inspired by an aesthetic drawn from electronic music. Over the past three years, he has released the albums Disappearer (2024), Figure Pieces (2025), and Miniatures (2026), each opening up different perspectives within his practice.
New musical directions
Although Dreyer’s oeuvre is characterized by a clear aesthetic line, it also includes a number of works that explore other modes of expression.
With Apparitions, created for the German ensemble recherche, he worked in a scenic and more narrative format aimed at children and families. Here, the music became part of a larger whole including scenography, lighting, and dramaturgy. In 2025, he entered one of the most tradition-bound genres of classical music when he composed the string quartet Doldrums, inertia for the American JACK Quartet - a purely acoustic work marking a deliberate departure from the electronics that have otherwise characterized his music over the past decade. And in 2026, he wrote the orchestral work Chimes Music for the Danish National Chamber Orchestra’s meditation concert Ro På, focusing on care and mental calm.
World premiere at SPOR Festival
In the same week that Mads Emil Dreyer turns 40, his latest work, The Letting Go, will receive its world premiere at SPOR Festival on April 24.
The work is written for the American quartet Yarn/Wire and consists of five short, almost ritualistic movements for, among other things, lyre harps, music boxes, and small percussion instruments. As is often the case in Dreyer’s work, the music emerges from the meeting between concrete sonic experiments and more abstract ideas—here with a focus on new instrumental combinations and the dialogues that arise between them.
The title points toward an existential dimension: the act of letting go and accepting the situation one finds oneself in. Not as a religious statement, but as a reflection on the tension between ideal and reality.
With The Letting Go, he adds yet another chapter to an already significant body of work—while also pointing ahead to new explorations in the borderland between sound, space, and perception that he has made his own.
Find more information about the upcoming performance at SPOR Festival here.