Niels Rosing-Schow (1954)

Picture: Suste Bonnén

Niels Rosing-Schow studied musicology at the University of Copenhagen from 1972 to 1979. In 1984 he graduated in music history and music theory at the Royal Danish Academy of Music. From 1984 he studied composition with Ib Nørholm followed by composition studies in Paris. A marked sense of lyrical expression has always been a characteristic of Rosing-Schow’ music, but in the later years he has combined this with an experimental exploration of the more dramatic and expansive possibilities of his musical and an inspiration from the French spectral school. Niels Rosing-Schow has composed works commissioned by leading Danish orchestras and ensembles, among others the Danish National Symphony Orchestra and the Aarhus Symphony Orchestra and a number of international ensembles such as The Capricorn Ensemble, Ensemble TM+ and Ensemble Alternance. Rosing-Schow has received a number of prizes, e.g. the Carl Nielsen and Anne Marie Carl-Nielsen Honorary Scholarship in 1993 and the Wilhelm Hansen Composer Prize in 2000.

Peinture du temps: As we know, time is the dimension of music, and musical form can be described as a result of time segments of differing experiential quality. Musical memory is the canvas on which music – time – paints its picture.

The situation of listening to chamber music traditionally is closely linked to the idea of intimacy. But is this still the case when the expression of ‘innigsten Empfindung’ is blown up reach 1000 spectators, some at a distance of more than 100 meters? Maybe the intimacy is related to the interplay between musicians in the performance of chamber music, actors in a play of ‘voces intimae’. For me the real musical intimacy is between the composer and his material in the composing process – which is valid not only for chamber music, but for all music. Ideally this is reflected into an intimate relation between sound and the listener.

www.ewh.dk