"What a concert! What an orchestra. What a soloist. And what a Composer. Yesterday The Danish National Symphony Orchestra / DR met my sky-high expectations, playing Carl Nielsen and Bent Sørensen." In a blog the artistic director of the Bergen International Festival, Per Boye Hansen wrote about his experience during the festival. "What is it that makes Bent Sørensen so unique? I don't have the answer, but a personal impression. It is like the musical voice (or voices) forces its way forward and demands its shape, not the other way around. The music is not primarily a construction filled with substance, but substance jumping forward, organised so that it becomes accessible to us."
During the Bergen International Festival the Danish composer Bent Sørensen was festival composer and was presented with a broad scope of works. Among others the orchestra piece Exit Music had its first performance at the opening concert with the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, Leif Ole Andsnes played Sørensen, and the national dance company of Norway Carte Blanche danced to the music of Sørensen in a choreography by Ingunn Bjørnsgård.
A number of Danish ensembles performed at the festival:
- The Danish National Symphony Orchestra / DR conducted by Thomas Dausgaard played two concerts under the heading "Danish Impulses". They played two symphonies and two concerts by Carl Nielsen, Bent Sørensen's Symphony and his great piece for the Hans Christian Andersen 2005 Celebration The Little Mermaid.
- Bent Sørensen and Danish music were also in focus when Athelas Sinfonietta Copenhagen had two concerts on the program.
- The Danish Horn Trio played the first performance of the German-Danish composer Søren Nils Eichberg. The Young Danish String Quartet played Edward Grieg and works by the Danish composers Hans Abrahamsen and Carl Nielsen.
The concerts with Athelas Sinfonietta were supported by the Danish Arts Agency, visiting programs of festivals organisers and music journalists were organised with support from the Danish Arts Council.
Bergen International Festival
