Faroese composer ”One of the first things I remember is the sound of water. The endless rain on the iron roof in my native village, a sound reminiscent of distant clapping after performances in the world's concert halls, the sound of water in overflowing gutters and splashing down-pipes running into the gravel and out into ditches and streams. You could lie in bed with your eyes closed and flow with the water until it plunged over the edge of the cliffs and down into the sea that spread all around us. There the sound of water was quite different, the rain was nothing then compared with the waves that washed up on the sandy beach or the breakers crashing onto the rocks and noisily receding.” That is how Faroese composer Sunleif Rasmussen recalls the first experiences that helped form his artistic talent. Nature reigns supreme on the Faroes, it cannot be rejected or ignored. It is there no matter what. Every artist on the eighteen steep rocky islands far out in the ocean relates to this prevailing nature, where hard meets soft and where human beings, whatever their circumstances, have to submit to its forces. The composer knows about idyll and threats along a frontier of indefinable yearning, which may well be an image of a particular Faroese feeling. Sunleif Rasmussen says himself that his upbringing in this special place in the world has been of decisive importance to him, ever since he first began to think in notes. Sunleif Rasmussen is the first Faroese composer to have been performed outside the Faroes to any significant extent. He has a significant international career. He undertook a thorough musical training in Denmark, but has never forgotten his original musical tongue. It is telling that after a year's stay in Denmark this artist moved back to the Faeroes, where he presently lives and composes. Until a few years ago, art in the Faroes was regarded chiefly as pictorial art. True, folk music and the old ballad were sung and discussed, but when the Faroes were mentioned abroad, painting was the chief topic. Sunleif Rasmussen put the Faroes on the musical map. He writes music, which is not merely a catalogue of natural phenomena, he writes modern music that interprets and takes musical language a step further. Sunleif Rasmussen starts out from tradition and local forms and figures, but never merely reproduces them, a transformation always takes place, a desire to convey the essence of a mood or expression. In this way Rasmussen fine-tunes his music and his material in the same way as painters like Samuel Mykines, Zacharias Heinesen and Amariel Nordøy. Literature is also one of his sources of inspiration, especially the Faroese poet William Heinesen (1900-1991) who wrote in Danish and is a major cultural force in the Faroe Islands. Sunleif Rasmussen has written music for several poems of his, and the libretto for Rasmussen’s new opera, The Madman’s Garden, is based on Heinesen’s short story (1060) by the same title. Sunleif Rasmussen is a modern composer with a modern musical idiom, but he lives in an isolated world, surrounded by the sea. But away from the clamour of the world this Faroese artist can concentrate on listening. He can listen in to the wind's song, to the primal notes of the world, and write the music of nature with the special interpretation and characteristics, which make his notes so compelling. Sunleif Rasmussen (b. 1961) trained at the Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen with teachers like Ivar Frounberg and Ib Nørholm. He is the first Faroese composer to enjoy an international career, and one of the major events in this respect was the awarding in 2002 of the prestigious Nordic Council Music Prize, which was granted to the composer for his Symphony No. 1 – “Oceanic Days”. He has also received a number of other prizes and awards over the years, of which ne could mention the Sonning Foundation’s grant for young composers in 1992, The Danish Composers’ Society’s grant in 1993, and The Danish Arts Foundation’s 3-year scholarship in 1997-1999. By Hans Pauli Thórgard Photo © Kalmar Lindenskov & Allan Brockie, 2002 The article is provided in coorperation with Edition Samfundet.

Sunleif Rasmussen was born in 1961. The composer is represented by Edition Samfundet, Copenhagen Details about Sunleif Rasmussen's works can be found in the database of musical works maintained by SNYK.