Danish composer Niels Rosing-Schow unfolds music. He dives into the compositional process and transforms it.

A combination of Danish and Nordic allegiance, transformed by a profound encounter with the spectral French style, Rosing-Schow examines and develops music. As he explores a single instrument and its abilities, he explores his own compositions, allowing them to blossom.

The music speaks.

Combining a contemplative point of view of his work, an interweaving of tones, timbres and harmonies, with a search for the truth, Niels Rosing-Schow defines his music as talende musik - music that speaks.

How does it make sense?

In his latest deep dive into the compositional process, Niels Rosing-Schow asks himself how does one consider the musical experience?

The musical experience is of course a personal one. But is it only that? Is there not a common perception, due to the common ‘hardware’ that we all possess? Niels Rosing-Schow believes there is.

Our bodies experience music physically and the composer believes that some reactions are personal, and some are common to everyone. By focusing on the perception and the physical experience of music, one finds gestures in music. Our common ‘hardware’, our bodies, react to the music, creating impressions and emotions.

An Artistic Research Project resulting in two concerts at EfterårsKLANG 2020 with Athelas Sinfonietta with two world premieres.

Unfolding during the spring and summer of 2020, an unusual time that deeply affected our everyday lives and political reality, this latest project is strongly affected by a question of time, our time. Our time becoming the central element in Unspoken – unheard (2020) dedicated to the Black Lives Matter movement.

The concerts on November 30 and 31, 2020 will include, in addition to the world premiere of Unspoken – unheard (2020), the world premiere of a Piano Concerto for the right hand only titled All Right?! (2020), Episodes from a concerto (2020), which is a new version for a smaller ensemble of Concerto for Saxophone (2004) (both composed for saxophonist Jeanette Balland) and two older pieces Distant Calls (2018) and FlashNight (2016).

Rosing-Schow studied musicology at the University of Copenhagen and music theory at the Royal Danish Academy of Music. Between 1984 and 1987 he studied composition with Prof. Ib Nørholm, followed by a short study trip to Paris, where he worked at Iannis Xenakis’s workshop Les Ateliers UPIC and became interested in the spectral ideas. He now teaches music theory and composition at the Royal Academy of Music as well as having held several organisational posts in the musical life of Denmark.

Discover the colourful music of Niels Rosing-Schow:


(October 2020)