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

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