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Edition·S – music¬sound¬art has a widespread, international activity and maintain and develop professional partnerships all over the world – as do a growing number of our living composers.

In the recent years, we have seen several composers and works raising attention on the international scene, and through partnerships with esteemed institutions, such as The London Sinfonietta or the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, the best works are being given a chance to show their quality and long-lasting impact on the international scene.

Simon Steen-Andersen: Ouvertures (2009-10)
Simon Steen Andersen (1976) is one of the most successful Danish composers of his generation. With a large number of international commissions and performances, ranging from solo to orchestral works, and with performance venues such as the Donaueschingen Music Days, the Berlin Ultraschall Festival and the Shanghai Spring International Music Festival, Simon has already established himself as a comet on the international art music scene.

His concerto for Chinese guzheng and orchestra, Ouvertures, was developed in two phases during 2009-10, both in Shanghai. The Shanghai Symphony Orchestra premiered the first part in May 2009 and as a result Simon won the first prize of 25,000 USD in that year’s audience competition. The work was later performed with great success at the ISCM Festival in Gothenburg and the Music Harvest Festival in Odense, Denmark. Later, in 2010, Simon developed the final version of the work, again in close collaboration with the Chinese guzheng virtuoso, Liu Le. The works was premiered in full by the Orchestra Philharmonique de Radio France in May 2010 and was programmed for performance at the Ultraschall Festival in January 2011.

Jexper Holmen: Oort Cloud (2008)

Jexper Holmen (b. 1971) made a smashing hit in 2009 as his 40 minute long ‘sphere of sound’ was performed during a portrait concert at that year’s edition of the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival (hcmf//). This visionary and groundbreaking composition (one of several significant works form recent years) earned Jexper a special status and soon thereafter lead to his later engagement as composer-in-residence at the hcmf// 2011-12.

The cover for the 2010 Dacapo Records release of Oort Cloud

Oort Cloud is composed for two accordions, soprano saxophone and amplification. It set to music the idea of the mysterious cloud of ice in outer space that may or may not exist… Music critic Torben Sangild describes it with the words: “Oort Cloud is the name of a spherical cloud of ice particles thought to lie around the solar system a light-year away, and from which the comets come. Holmen’s work is also an icy cloud of sounds that move in stretches we cannot grasp. When you do not see the much-tried musicians, the music seems to move of its own volition, to follow its own laws, of which we only see the surface. For that very reason the work can be heard again and again, both alien and familiar, easy and demanding, sensitive and objectified. A cloud of jarring atmospheres.”

Dacapo Records has released Oort Cloud, embedding a promotion code for a complimentary download of a high resolution 5.1. Surround sound version.

Oort Cloud on Dacapo Records The dedicated Oort Cloud site

Simon Steen-Andersen: Double Up (2010)
Soon after the world premiere of the final version of Ouvertures in Shanghai, Simon worked hard on his next orchestral commission, the almost 20 minute long Double Up, which was commissioned by the Donaueschingen Music Days and premiered by the Hilversum Orchestra under the baton of Peter Eötvös. Double Up is a paradox in a way. On one hand, it’s an extremely complex composition, exposing a fine pattern of compositions elements, miniculously arranged in a grid of sonorities – and on the other hand, Double Up is just plain, pleasurable orchestral sound, brought to its listener with the composer’s natural sense of what makes a musical adventure work.

Watch this from Donaueschingen:

‘The London Sessions’ (2010) – feat. Christian Winther Christensen, Rune Glerup and Nicolai Worsaae
The community of professional composers in Denmark can pride itself of several great achievements – one of the most significant being the ability to create a collaborative environment for musical creation. It is not at all evident that composers can share a stage, the idea of a possible future success, and develop an artistic vision. But especially the young generation of composers has a strong sense of the quality of working closely together – most probably a result of the network thinking that has become a part of our 21st Century mindset.

The collaborative force was thus the pivoting point of the four-concert {PLIIINGGG…} Festival in May 2010 where the London Sinfonietta and a handful of the best Danish soloists made sure to present the works of the three emerging stars at their best. Streams below are presented courtesy of the London Sinfonietta.