Therese Ulvo wins the Arne Nordheim Composer Prize 2024. The Prize will be awarded at this year's Ultima Festival in Oslo, Norway.

The Arne Nordheim Composer Prize (named after the legendary Norwegian composer) is one of Norway's biggest music prizes. Since 2001, it has been awarded to a composer for their orginality, creativity and impact on Norwegian music.

The Prize was awarded with the following statement from the jury:

Therese Birkelund Ulvo is a fearless, exploratory, dialogic, and innovative composer. The award winner's work reflects a wide range of new ways to express oneself through sound. Her music is inspired by contemporary art, and she has a close connection to Norwegian traditional music. At the same time, she demonstrates a willingness and ability to add something new to the tradition. She is a composer who is not afraid to take risks, and her music consistently shows an openness to new possibilities and potentials. [...] Ulvo has an impressive catalog of works that spans solo, chamber, choral, orchestral compositions, and installations. She has received numerous awards for her work, including the Young Lindeman Prize and the Edvard Prize. In addition to being a prolific composer, the award winner has been active in the music scene as a record producer, podcaster, a mentor for young composers, and she has served as the artistic director of the Hardanger Music Festival since 2014. Therese Birkelund Ulvo leaves her mark on Norwegian musical life, and her quality, relevance, and curiosity make her a deserving winner. The jury believes that she explores and expands the role of the composer in a contemporary way, and she actively contributes to art music with her poetic, inquisitive, and beautiful music.

This season, we are very excited about her upcoming opera Terminus commissioned by the Norwegian Opera and Ballet, Trondheim Opera and Bergen National Opera. The opera will premiere in Oslo on May 15, 2025.

Terminus is a retelling of the iconic Scandinavian play Jeppe på bjerget (Jeppe on the Hill) by Ludvig Holberg. In Ulvo's opera, Lola is a modern-day Jeppe and like him, she is tricked into a drama with herself in the lead role.

An opera about not being heard, seen or helped when it really matters. What responsibility do we have to each other, and what does that mean in our time? What is sickness and what is health? What is real and what is staged? All these are the questions Terminus asks.

We also look forward to Therese Ulvo's new orchestral work, written for Stavanger Symphony Orchestra, for the series 'The Essence of Stavanger' in celebration of the city’s 900th anniversary. The work will receive its World Premiere on February 6, 2025 with conductor Andris Poga.

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