Thomas Dausgaard
Biography Thomas Dausgaard
DR SymfoniOrkestret
The Danish National Symphony Orchestra (DR SymfoniOrkestret) is an internationally acclaimed orchestra with proud traditions, founded in 1925 as one of the first radio symphony orchestras. With its chief conductor and honorary conductor the orchestra is in particularly expert hands, and other master conductors are also regular visitors. The orchestra collaborates with among others Marek Janowski, Gary Bertini, Jeffrey Tate, Jaap van Zweden, Alexandre Lazarev, Evgeny Svetlanov, Christopher Hogwood, , Ton Koopman, Marc Soustrot, Manfred Honeck, Marin Alsop, Leopold Hager, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Sylvain Cambreling, Leonard Slatkin, Gianandrea Noseda, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, John Eliot Gardiner and . The German conductor Gerd Albrecht was chief conductor of the orchestra in 2000-2004, and Yuri Temirkanov 1. guest conductor from 2000 to 2008. Two legendary conductors built up the orchestra in the early years: Fritz Busch and the Rus¬sian Nicolai Malko, whom the orchestra honours with the international Malko Competition for young conductors. Over the years the orchestra has also worked with some of the greatest composers of the twentieth century as soloists and conductors: Igor Stravinsky, Sergei Prokofiev, Paul Hinde¬mith, Pierre Boulez, Witold Lutoslawski, Karlheinz Stockhausen and Hans Werner Henze. The Danish National Symphony Orchestra/DR tours regularly in Denmark and abroad, in its role as Denmark’s national orchestra. In recent years the orchestra has performed in places as far apart as China, Korea, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Proms in London, the Baltic Festival in Stockholm and most recently with a successful tour of the Continent with concerts in among other venues the Théâtre des Champs Elysées in Paris.
Thomas Dausgaard - Conductor
Thomas Dausgaard became Chief Conductor of the Danish National Symphony Orchestra in August 2004. The orchestra has developed impressively under his leadership, embracing his energy and creativity. With Dausgaard they tour world-wide, performing in Berlin, Vienna, Paris, Amsterdam and London and they have also recorded extensively together. Of particular note is their disc of Nielsen works which was nominated for a 2007 Gramophone award. The Swedish Chamber Orchestra has also flourished under Dausgaard’s direction since he took up his position there in 1997. Having brought this group from a regional orchestra to international attention over the past decade, he and the orchestra have recorded all of Beethoven’s orchestral music for Simax, and they continue to record prolifically, breaking with tradition as a chamber orchestra to record all of Schumann’s symphonies and a selection of symphonies from Dvorák, Schubert, Schumann and Bruckner for BIS.
Per Salo - Piano
Born in 1962 in Copenhagen Denmark, Per Salo studied piano and organ in Denmark, Italy and USA. In Denmark he studied with Grethe Krogh, Flemming Dreisig, Esther Wagning and John Damgaard. In New York, USA, he studied with Seymour Lipkin. Salo graduated with an Organ Diploma from the Royal Danish Conservatory of Music in 1985 and with a Masters Degree in Piano Performance from Juilliard School of Music, New York in 1989.
Per Salo is very active both as a soloist and as a chamber musician. His repertoire includes many Danish and contemporary works and many Danish composers have written music for him. In 1996 dedicated his piano concerto Concerto in due Tempi to Per Salo. Per Salo’s concert activities have brought him to all of the Scandinavian countries, most of Europe, Korea and the USA. Recently he appeared as a soloist in Olivier Messiaen’s Turangalila Symphony at concerts in Germany and Denmark.
Inger Dam-Jensen - Soprano
Inger Dam-Jensen is one of Scandinavia’s leading sopranos. She is a soloist at the Royal Danish Opera in Copenhagen and a sought-after guest on opera and concert stages all over Europe. In 1993 she won the BBC’s major competition “Singer of the World” in Wales. Since then she has sung at venues such as Covent Garden in London, the Bastille Opera in Paris and the Glyndebourne Festival in England. She has been a soloist with the leading English orchestras and with among others the Berlin Philharmonic, the New York Philharmonic and the Cleveland Orchestra. It is mainly music by Mozart, Richard Strauss and Mahler that has typifi ed Inger Dam-Jensen’s career. She has appeared in the soprano parts in Mahler’s orchestral works conducted by among others Colin Davis and Christoph von Dohnányi, and has sung Lieder by Strauss with Vladimir Ashkenazy and Malcolm Martineau. She also sings a great deal of Baroque music, not least Handel, and has received high praise for the role of Cleopatra in Handel’s opera Julius Caesar in a production with the countertenor Andreas Scholl. The performance has been issued on DVD. Along with Scholl she has also performed Handel’s opera Parthenope, both in Copenhagen and at the Proms in London, and she has recorded the oratorio Solomon with the conductor Paul McCreesh. Inger Dam-Jensen appears on a long succession of CDs from Dacapo, including a reference recording of Carl Nielsen’s songs. Her other recordings for Dacapo include Langgaard’s Second Symphony, the opera Liden Kirsten by J.P.E. Hartmann and August Enna’s The Little Match-Girl.
