Carl Nielsen is Denmark’s foremost composer who is also an admired violinist, conductor and symphonist
Filipinos will get to here the music of Carl Nielsen (1865-1931), Denmark’s foremost composer who is also an admired violinist, conductor and symphonist.
The Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra performs plays his music under the baton of its Maestro Olivier Ochanine on February 19 at the Cultural Center of the Philippines’ Tanghalang Nicanor Abelardo (CCP Main Theater) at 8 p.m.
The concert will also feature guest artists soprano Dénise Beck and baritone Thomas Storm from Denmark.
The program is part of “The Carl Nielsen Project” (CNP) and features Nielsen’s Maskarade Overture, some of Nielsen’s most beloved songs and Nielsen’s Symphony No.3 “Sinfonia Espansiva.”
Baritone Thomas Stormn
CNP is an undertaking and collaboration by Maestro Ochanine and Thomas Storm, with generous support by the Royal Danish Embassy in Manila in cooperation with the Cultural Center of the Philippines. The event is the first of its kind to bring awareness in the Philippines to the Danish leading composer, with his 150th birth anniversary in 2015.
Romanticism influenced Nielsen’s early music, but his later style was a powerful fusion of chromatic and often dissonant harmony, solid contrapuntal structure, concentrated motivic treatment, and bold extensions of tonality with frequent polytonal passages. His six symphonies, written between 1890 and 1925, are forceful works that feature decisively articulated tonal progressions.
Soprano Dénise Beck
Meanwhile, guest artist Beck is a renowned opera artist and oratorial singer. She received the Inga Nielsen Prize, the Talen Award of the Danish National Radio 2011 and was announced Sonning Laureate 2012. In 2015, she received the Else Brems Prize. This year, she will be awarded the Axel Schiotz Prize.
Storm, on the other hand, was educated from The Carl Nielsen Academy of Music and The Opera academy at The Royal Theatre in Copenhagen in 2011 where he studied with Prof. Kirsten Buhl Møller. He has, in a few years, established himself as one of the most sought-after baritones in Denmark.