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Thorbjørn Tønder Hansen (1971-2026)

Thorbjørn Tønder Hansen has died. With Thorbjørn’s passing, the art music community has lost one of the Nordic region’s most significant producers, curators and cultural leaders.

For more than two decades, Thorbjørn worked at the intersection of contemporary music, sound art, festival management and Danish-Norwegian cultural cooperation. From 2000 to 2006, Thorbjørn was manager of the Norwegian Cikada Ensemble. In 2009, he became director of Art Music Denmark (then Snyk), a position he held until 2017, when he returned to the Norwegian cultural scene as director of the Ultima Festival. In the final years of his life, Thorbjørn served as a board member of the Foundation for Danish-Norwegian Cooperation.

Thorbjørn was a well-liked and visionary cultural leader who left an indelible mark on the music scene. I, like many other Danish artists, probably remember Thorbjørn best for his inspiring and courageous projects, such as the G((o))ng Tomorrow Festival (formerly Wundergrund). Thorbjørn was never afraid to give young and emerging artists a chance to perform, and I do not think it is an exaggeration to say that, for this reason alone, Thorbjørn had an impact on an entire generation of Danish artists.

I was still a young composition student when I first met Thorbjørn. It must have been around 2008. At the time, Thorbjørn was a project manager at Art Music Denmark, which was in the midst of developing G((o))ng Tomorrow. A festival that mixed genres and crossed artistic communities, Thorbjørn explained – a radical concept in Denmark at the time. The next thing I knew, I was standing on the G((o))ng stage at Råhuset with a group of wild young artists – musicians and composers, from both classical and rhythmic traditions, with vastly different artistic expressions and working methods. The concert that followed was hardly an artistic revelation, but the conversations, friendships and nights at the bar with a group of artists I would otherwise never have encountered opened my eyes to an entirely new way of collaborating – both artistically and in terms of cultural production.

Over the years, Thorbjørn developed many international friendships with artists and institutions from near and far. Thorbjørn and G((o))ng Tomorrow introduced countless exciting artists to Denmark while also opening new doors abroad for Danish artists. For many years, Thorbjørn was almost synonymous with Danish art music abroad and an exceptionally important link between artists, venues and festivals.

This is how I believe many people remember Thorbjørn: as an inspiring figure with forward-looking ideas, curious and courageous, and with a strong understanding of the value of international musical exchange.

The Danish music scene would not be the same without Thorbjørn. The same can be said of Art Music Denmark. Our small genre organisation has changed considerably since Thorbjørn was its director. Nevertheless, I am proud of the organisation I myself took over, and where the fundamental values from that time are still very much alive. An organisation that works to create new opportunities for artists. An organisation with a strong international network and a focus on international musical exchange. I do not believe this would have been possible without Thorbjørn’s immense and tireless groundwork.

Thorbjørn Tønder Hansen has died. He will be deeply missed, not only by artists and the cultural community across the Nordic region, but also by his many friends and collaborators around the world. Thorbjørn created connections, ideas and visions that continue to shape today’s cultural landscape. I have no doubt that his impact on the cultural life of the Nordic region will live on.

My warmest thoughts go out to Thorbjørn’s family and loved ones at this difficult time.

May Thorbjørn’s memory be honoured.

Regin Petersen
Director, Art Music Denmark

in briefrelease

24.10

JASSS Tears the Cellophane Off Electronic Music

JASSS: »Eager Buyers«

AWOS, 19.09

Mira Siegel

The sound of Eager Buyers is as intense as crackling cellophane – and just as revealing. It’s as if all musical labels have been stripped away, leaving behind a raw, unfiltered sonic world where genres dissolve and everything becomes possible. The Berlin-based Spanish producer JASSS forges her sound in a punkish alloy of electronic music, industrial, EDM, and rock-inspired guitar riffs.

Her third album is a rebellion against conformity and expectation. To label JASSS is nearly impossible – unless the label is cool. In the complex rhythmic compositions, where traces of bitcrush are balanced by melancholic harmonies and subtle hints of medieval-core on the track »Sand Wrists«, we enter a universe that is at once nostalgic and adventurous – and at the same time simmering with the energy of Berlin’s nightlife.

Eager Buyers is magnetic – even for listeners who don’t normally inhabit the electronic realm. The album carries a clear narrative, driven by a dark, almost theatrical energy. JASSS turns toward a world she perceives as »malnourishing« – as she phrases it through song titles like »Hollow« and »The Mob Expects Malnutrition«. Yet the melodrama has a tinge of irony: there’s something disarmingly sarcastic about it all, as if Eager Buyers is ultimately about the disillusioned modern human.

JASSS rattles the cellophane of the musical packaging we usually call genres, reminding us that music, too, is a product to be sold and bought. Eager Buyers is an album that refuses to be wrapped up – and precisely for that reason, it’s worth buying.

English translation: Andreo Michaelo Mielczarek

playlist

23.10

My name is C.Y. Frostholm – would you like to see my playlist?

»Music, to me, is true luxury and has always been an opening into a language without constricting categories, with room for both intimacy and impact. I don’t have a single tone in life, but I wish I did. When I work, music is a warm room I can barricade myself in, an ally that keeps me on track—not least in a time as destructive as the one we are in now. It can be a connection to difficult emotions, but also an excuse for a kitchen dance that makes me forget the world and myself. I actually constantly long for a new soundtrack (and more dancing), but if I’m completely honest, I’m also quite happy to take off the headphones and listen—not least to the non-human world’s differently calming compositions: all the other voices that we must include in the choir if there is to be human song and music in the future.«

C.Y. Frostholm (b. 1963) is a writer and visual artist who has published poetry and prose since 1985 and worked visually since 1991, including with photography, digital, and visual poetry. Together with composer Hans Sydow, he released the album Mellem stationerne back in 2000. Earlier this year, he took part in the exhibition Hybris! at Galleri Image in Aarhus, based on his latest book, Til den ven jeg aldrig har kendt (2023).

in brieflive

18.10

One Tone, Eight Breaths, and the Sound of Waiting

Elisa Kragerup, Louise Alenius, Vokalensemblet ÆTLA and others: »The Emperor of Portugalia«

Edison, Betty Nansen Teatret, 17.10–14.11

Henrik Marstal

Only one actor appears on stage in The Emperor of Portugalia – surrounded by eight singers. In Elisa Kragerup’s tightly choreographed staging, Louise Alenius’ a cappella composition becomes a physical experience where breath and movement merge into one. The acoustic soundscape interacts eerily quietly with the deafening, mechanical noises that arise when, for instance, beams of light are raised and lowered on stage. It feels as if the relentlessness of existence here briefly finds a sonic expression that captures Selma Lagerlöf’s intentions.

The sparse – or rather ascetic – soundscape, together with the humble peasant costumes, reflects the harsh, monotonous life of a Swedish village before the world turned modern. And the plot? A poor farmer worships his daughter, but when she leaves for Stockholm as a young woman and never returns, his years of yearning drive him, in a Don Quixote-like fashion, to believe himself emperor of the imaginary land of Portugalia, with his daughter naturally imagined as its ruler. The father’s longing borders on madness, while the daughter’s neglect or thoughtlessness ultimately turns against her: in a Godot-like manner, he waits and waits for her – just as she, after his drowning, waits for him, unable to find his body.

The piece is carried by an almost unbroken drone in the choir (produced through collective breathing) – a single sustained tone that, as an artistic device, illustrates how music in theatre can be so minimal that sound itself becomes the message, and the absence of a musical narrative becomes the point. »One tone played beautifully is enough,« Arvo Pärt once said. Except that here, the tone is sung – and in this work, his statement is affirmed in the most radical way: a maximal expression achieved through minimal means, realised with striking precision by Vokalensemblet ÆTLA.

English translation: Andreo Michaelo Mielczarek

in briefrelease

16.10

A Microphone In the Nervous System

IKI: »BODY«

IKI, 17.10

Therese Wiwe Vilmar

It sounds as if someone has placed a microphone directly inside the nervous system’s electrical impulses. The Nordic electroacoustic vocal ensemble IKI explores the boundaries between body and technology on their fifth, self-produced album BODY, where the five singers’ bodies merge into one large, organic rhythm box.

The tracks change form as the body breathes, dances, awakens, runs, wanders – in the imperative mood. The harmonically unison ripple of »Float« is countered by flickering modem-like sounds in »Regenerate«. Everything is framed by the recurring theme »Circuit«, which ultimately gathers the fragments into a single linguistic statement: »Are you gone when your body is not breathing?«

BODY demands concentration. IKI claims that all sounds on the album are created with the voice – a counterpoint to the electrically manipulated, a kind of reversed version of synthesizer sounds that imitate the human voice. It’s an incomprehensible mystery one keeps listening for: how can the voice produce the accordion-like sound on »Breath«, panned all the way to the left and slowly taking over the entire soundscape? Of course, it can’t do so on its own. The recording itself is an electronic mediation. The technological tools act as a microscope for vocal expression. It’s powerful because it asks about the transitions between human and machine, between life and afterlife. Yet the premise holds a paradox that never fully resolves.

English translation: Andreo Michaelo Mielczarek

playlist

10.10

Miy name is Bjarke Niemann – would you like to see my playlist?

»Music is everything that can only be described far more poorly with words.«

Bjarke Niemann is the lead singer, songwriter, and producer of the Danish band Spleen United. The group broke through with Godspeed Into The Mainstream in 2005 and has performed at, among other places, Roskilde Festival and the Copenhagen Opera House. Bjarke Niemann has also composed and developed music for TV and video games – including the international game series Hitman – and has produced albums with artists such as Soleima, Statisk, Afskum, and Hugorm.