Britta Byström Letter in April
Outi Tarkiainen The Ring of Fire and Love
Anna Thorvaldsdottir CATAMORPHOSIS
Therese Birkelund Ulvo has excelled as a composer in the larger formats in recent years and is one of few Norwegian composers in her generation who regularly gets her works performed with the major Norwegian orchestras. The music is often inspired by other art fields, such as film, text, and sound art. She has a close relationship with Norwegian traditional music, where one can find both the microtonal, the rhapsodic, and open forms. Her music is widely performed, at home and abroad.
You always hear beauty when you listen to Signe Lykke's music. Not only euphony, though it is also found in rich measure, but the beauty that makes life interesting and the music indispensable.
Signe Lykke is a trained singer from the Rhythmic Music Conservatory in Copenhagen and a classical composer from the Trinity Conservatoire of Music in London and the College of Fine Arts in Austin, Texas.
A focus on the compositional process, the musicians’ and singers' closeness to that process and the final work, helps to give Signe Lykke's music a special aura, that reaches all the way down to the back of the hall during each performance.
Sound, calm and intensity are all words that can be used about Lykke's works. Her music has room for the listener, room for you to let your focus wander in the soundscape and find new fascinating homes.
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Danish American Lil Lacy is a composer whose curiosity is at the center of her music. She works with the meeting of medias and genres, focusing on the connectivity within music. Creating without the limitations of the classical structures, Lacy is also a performer, a singer and experimental cellist. This unique perspective offers her music a malleability to space.
Lacy’s music is born in the meeting with performers, audiences, and space. From installation to orchestra, she creates tailor-made universes, claiming the right to be heard.
Lacy has composed for orchestra, choir, installations and electronics, and in collaboration with art films, theatre, visual arts and dance. Her curiosity allows her to move between worlds, bringing herself into each one, whilst absorbing a bit of them, each time.
Her first orchestral work Aliento del Mar, written for accordionist Bjarke Mogensen and Gävle Symphony Orchestra, is inspired by the movement of the tide, the push and pull of large forces. The music, as does nature, constantly transforms, from something that can barely be heard, to something than can barely be stopped again (Arbetarbladet 2021). With her use of plastic bags, Lacy deepens the ocean sound, whilst highlighting the issue of plastic waste in our waters.
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Josefine Opsahl (b. 1992) is a Danish composer and cellist whose work spans classical composition, electronic experimentation, and interdisciplinary performance. Based between Copenhagen and Berlin, she merges acoustic and digital soundscapes, often combining her cello with live electronics and sound design in her solo performances.
Opsahl studied both classical and contemporary music at the Royal Danish Academy of Music and Northwestern University (IL, USA), earning her Master’s degree in cello. She later completed composition studies in Contemporary Creative Art at the South Danish Conservatory.
Her work as a performer includes collaborations with ensembles such as Kottos and We Like We, as well as her 2022 solo release Atrium. As a composer, Opsahl has written for opera, ballet, and symphonic orchestra, including a cello concerto and large-scale works premiered at the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg. Her opera Hjem was nominated for Opera of the Year at the 2023 Reumert Awards.
She is the recipient of several prestigious honors, including the 2022 Crown Prince Couple’s Stardust Award, the 2021 Léonie Sonning Talent Prize, and the Wilhelm Hansen Foundation’s Prize of Honor (2020).
Opsahl’s music is noted for its sensitivity to space, texture, and time—combining formal classical training with a contemporary, genre-defying curiosity.
Louise Alenius hacks into formats, unsettles her musicians, challenges her audience, dissects the concert form.
Her career as a composer for classical ensembles began in 2008 with new music for the second act of August Bournonville’s ballet Napoli, which had its premiere at the Royal Danish Theatre in 2009. In 2008 Alenius wrote the music for Louise Midjord’s modern ballet The Egg, The Monk and The Warrior. She composed the music for Constantine Baecher’s ballet Palimpsest in 2011 and for Cathy Marston’s ballet Elephant Man in 2013.
In Rouge, a duet for strings from 2016, during their performance of the work a cellist and a viola player are bound to their seats with gaffer tape by the composer herself, who then proceeds to tear at their skin with her nails.
Since 2014 Alenius has presented six different versions of La Poreuse, a work designed for an audience of just one person at a time. 2016 saw the premiere of Prequiem, a work to be performed for one terminally ill patient at a time.
She has also supplied the dramatic atmospherics and haunting mood for a succession of advertising films for such companies as Peugeot (2011), Turkcell (2014) and Interflora (2015).
Louise Alenius lives primarily in Copenhagen, but has a base in Paris as well. In addition to her work with the Royal Danish Theatre she also carries out freelance commissions, composing works for ensembles large and small, choirs, films, adverts and dance companies.
Ralf Christensen © Translation copyright Barbara J. Haveland 2017
Maja S.K. Ratkje (b. 1973) is a Norwegian composer, vocalist, and performer known for her boundary-pushing work in experimental and contemporary classical music. Based in Oslo, she works across a wide spectrum of formats—from chamber music and orchestral works to opera, electronic music, improvisation, and interdisciplinary performance.
Ratkje studied composition at the Norwegian Academy of Music under Lasse Thoresen, Olav Anton Thommessen, and Asbjørn Schaathun, and continued studies at IRCAM and with composers including Louis Andriessen, Sofia Gubaidulina, and Kaija Saariaho. She is a founding member of the Norwegian improv quartet SPUNK, and performs internationally with a variety of collaborators including Jaap Blonk, Lasse Marhaug, Stephen O’Malley, and Zeena Parkins.
Her music has been performed by leading ensembles such as Ensemble Intercontemporain, Klangforum Wien, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Oslo Sinfonietta, and the Norwegian Radio Orchestra, among others. She has appeared as a vocal soloist with orchestras and chamber groups across Europe, often performing her own works such as the Concerto for Voice and Orchestra and the large-scale choral-electronic piece Crepuscular Hour.
Ratkje’s diverse output includes opera (No Title Performance), works for dance and theatre, installations, and sound art. Notable works include Gagaku Variations, Korall Koral (a baby opera), Sinus Seduction, and Essential Extensions. She has been composer-in-residence at several international festivals and was twice profiled by the Other Minds Festival in San Francisco.
She was the first Norwegian recipient of the Arne Nordheim Composer’s Prize (2001), and has received multiple honors including two Edvard Prizes, the UNESCO Rostrum Award, and a Prix Ars Electronica Award of Distinction for her groundbreaking solo album Voice.
In addition to her creative work, Ratkje is a published author (Stemmer. Eksperimentell kvinneglam), a former music critic, and an outspoken environmental advocate. She refuses commissions or performances sponsored by the oil industry and is a member of the climate action group Stopp oljesponsing av norsk kulturliv.
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Anna Thorvaldsdottir (b. 1977) is one of Iceland’s most celebrated composers, internationally acclaimed for her immersive orchestral soundscapes shaped by landscapes, nature, and a deep sense of atmosphere. Her music, often described as expansive and elemental, has been commissioned and performed by some of the world’s leading orchestras and ensembles, including the Berliner Philharmoniker, New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris, and BBC Philharmonic.
Originally trained as a cellist, Thorvaldsdottir studied composition at the Iceland Academy of the Arts, and later earned her MA and PhD from the University of California, San Diego. She is currently composer-in-residence with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra and is based in Surrey, UK.
Her major orchestral works include Dreaming (2010), which earned her the Nordic Council Music Prize in 2012; AERIALITY (2011), which brought her international attention; METACOSMOS (2017), premiered by Esa-Pekka Salonen and the New York Philharmonic; and CATAMORPHOSIS (2020), commissioned by the Berlin Philharmonic and awarded the Ivors Composer Award in 2021.
Thorvaldsdottir’s music has been featured at leading venues and festivals such as the BBC Proms, Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, and Big Ears Festival, and she has been the subject of portrait concerts around the world. She has also held guest lectures and presentations at institutions including Stanford, Columbia, Cornell, Sibelius Academy, and the Royal Academy of Music.
Her work continues to shape the global contemporary classical scene with its profound sense of time, space, and sonic imagination.
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Kaija Saariaho (1952–2023) was a Finnish composer whose visionary work reshaped the landscape of contemporary classical music. Based in Paris since 1982, she was internationally acclaimed for her immersive sound worlds, blending live instruments with electronics to create rich, spectral textures.
She studied composition in Helsinki, Freiburg, and Paris, and her research at IRCAM marked a pivotal shift in her style—from serialism to spectralism. Saariaho received major commissions from institutions such as the Lincoln Center, IRCAM, the BBC, New York Philharmonic, Salzburg Festival, and the Finnish National Opera.
In 2019, she was voted the greatest living composer in a BBC Music Magazine poll of fellow composers. Saariaho’s legacy endures through her deeply expressive, sonically rich compositions that continue to inspire audiences and musicians worldwide.
Outi Tarkiainen (b. 1985) is a Finnish composer whose music draws deeply from the natural landscapes and emotional resonances of her native Lapland. Born and raised in Rovaniemi, she creates contemporary classical works that often explore themes of nature, memory, and identity.
Tarkiainen studied composition at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki with Eero Hämeenniemi and Veli-Matti Puumala, and continued her studies with Ron Miller at the University of Miami and Malcolm Singer at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London.
Her works span orchestral music, chamber music, and vocal pieces, and she is recognized for her evocative, lyrical style and rich orchestration.
Britta Byström (b. 1977) is a Swedish composer known for her richly textured orchestral works and a distinctive sensitivity to sound and resonance, often described as impressionistic. Born in Sundsvall, she studied composition with Pär Lindgren and Bent Sørensen and has since written for a wide range of ensembles, including chamber music, vocal music, and opera—though her primary focus has been orchestral music.
Byström’s works have been performed by leading orchestras such as the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Gürzenich Orchestra, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, and the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra. She has composed for soloists including Malin Broman, Rick Stotijn, Radovan Vlatković, and Janine Jansen.
She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Carin Malmlöf-Forssling Composer’s Prize (2010), Lilla Christ Johnson Prize (2012), and the Stora Christ Johnson Prize (2020). Her viola concerto A Walk After Dark, written for Ellen Nisbeth, received the Da-Capo Prize at the Brandenburger Biennale in 2014. In 2016, she was awarded the Elaine Lebenbom Award for Female Composers by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, and her song cycle Notes From the City of the Sun, featuring soprano Malin Byström, was recognized as a “recommended work” at the International Rostrum of Composers in 2019.
Highlights of her recent work include Infinite Rooms, a double concerto for violin/viola and double bass inspired by Yayoi Kusama’s immersive art installations, and Parallel Universes, an orchestral work based on cosmologist Max Tegmark’s theories. The latter was commissioned by the BBC to mark the 150th anniversary of the Royal Albert Hall and premiered at the BBC Proms in 2021. Her chamber opera Gállábártnit, with a Sami-language libretto by Rawdna Carita Eira, premiered at Soundstreams in Toronto in 2019.
Byström’s music has been published by Edition Wilhelm Hansen since 2010. She became a member of the Swedish Society of Composers in 2002 and was elected to the Royal Swedish Academy of Music in 2016.
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