Scan Magazine | Attraction of the Month | Denmark
Attraction of the Month, Denmark
Making music available to everyone Aarhus Symfoniorkester (Aarhus Symphony Orchestra) was founded in 1935 to serve as the city’s orchestra. Since then, it has grown to become a large national orchestra, collaborating with national and international talents and performing both modern and classical symphonies, while still maintaining a distinct focus on providing music to the local community. By Josefine Older Steffensen | Photos: Nikolaj Lund
“We’re better now than we’ve ever been,” says chief executive and artistic director Kristian Rahbek Knudsen about the orchestra, which currently counts 66 musicians. Originally trained as a classical violinist himself, Knudsen had the pleasure of guest performing with the orchestra when he was younger before a career in chemistry whisked him off to Cambridge and even farther shores. His office still rings with the tender tones of the violin on occasion, but his focus is 106 | Issue 104 | September 2017
solely on the creative and administrative development of the orchestra. “We’re developing in really exciting and creative ways,” he says. In recent years, the orchestra has collaborated with many conductors and soloists to create a new way of playing music. Currently, they have the Danish composer Allan Gravgaard Madsen writing three pieces specifically for Aarhus Symphony Orchestra. Madsen is famed for his tal-
ents when it comes to composing classical music for orchestras. In August this year, the orchestra collaborated with Shiva Feshareki, a conductor and turntablist, who uses a turntable to create a duet with the orchestra positioned in a circle around her. “We quite often look internationally for people we want to create something with or invite to Denmark. Feshareki has performed in London and, after hearing what she could do, we were incredibly excited and honoured to invite her to perform with us in Aarhus.”
The city’s orchestra Despite working with international talents, Aarhus Symphony Orchestra has not forgotten about its roots. There are