Ars Nova Copenhagen, Gert Mortensen, Hsiao-Tung Yuan, Michael Murohy, Percussion & Paul Hillier
Biography Ars Nova Copenhagen, Gert Mortensen, Hsiao-Tung Yuan, Michael Murohy, Percussion & Paul Hillier
Gert Mortensen
graduated from The Royal Academy of Music in Copenhagen, from the soloist programme where he now holds the position as Professor, Head of Timpani and Percussion.
For 25 years Gert held the position as principal percussionist at The Royal Danish Orchestra, Copenhagen and became recognised as one of the leading concert percussionists in the world.
As a soloist he has performed in concerts and television/radio shows in the majority of Europe, USA, Japan, Australia and China. He has played at numerous international festivals, including at the Royal Albert Hall with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, The Barbican, ISCM World Music Daus, Warzaw Autumn, Edinburgh Festival, Festspellene in Bergen, Estate Musicale Venice, Beijing Percussion Days, The Stockhausen Festival and Berlin Philharmonic.
Gert Mortensen has since 2004 intensified his concert touring in China where he has performed in countless cities from Shenyang in the north, to Guanzhou in the South, at famous venues such as the National Centre for Performing Arts, Beijing, and the Shanghai Grand Theatre.
He has been featured as a soloist with the Beijing Symphony Orchestra and has represented Denmark during the Expo 2010 Shanghai China. He has delivered lectures and masterclasses and has had TV-programmes on the international Chinese CCTV consequently becoming a founding member of the world’s first Music Confucius Institute (MCI) – established in Copenhagen during a visit from the Chinese president in 2012.
Gert Mortensen regularly delivers masterclasses all over the globe and has been an instructor in the European Union Youth Orchestra under the direction of Claudio Abbado. He has also been an instructor at the National Youth Orchestra China, founded in Carnegie Hall in New York 2017.
A string of Scandinavia’s leading composers has written pieces to Gert Mortensen – among them Per Nørgaard, Sven-David Sandström, Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen, Poul Ruders and Askell Masson.
Gert Mortensen has recorded for BIS, DG, OUR and Dacapo Records.
Hsiao-Tung Yuan
is a versatile percussionist with an exceptional range of talents and significant international accomplishments. With a career spanning over a decade, she was a dedicated member of the world-renowned “Ju Percussion Group” in Taiwan, with whom she performed hundreds of concerts and toured internationally. Her soloist journey as seen collaborations with esteemed ensembles such as the National Taiwan Symphony Orchestra, Copenhagen Phil, Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra, Det Kongelige Kapels Slagtøjsgruppe, PERCURAMA Percussion Ensemble, Mathias Reumert Group, among others .
Since 2016, she has been based in Copenhagen, Denmark, and has specialized in contemporary music as percussionist with K!ART Ensemble, focusing on collaborating with upcoming composers. She also worked closely with diverse groups, Danish Chamber Orchestra, Danish Concert Band, Northern Opera Company, Ars Nova Copenhagen, and Current Resonance. She has recorded albums for Dacapo and Naxos.
In January, 2021, she had her Debut concert from the advanced post-graduate Soloist class at Det Kongelige Danske Musikkonservatorium, from where she also obtained a Master’s degree with pedagogy. Since 2022 she is also active as a solo performer in ‘Hsiao Solo Project’ – a sustained collaborating project with different composers with the aim of expanding the modern solo percussion repertoire. On her latest solo concert the eternal clock has stopped and awaits its moment in September 2023, Seismograf has commented “A car manual and the magic of the hand: ‘What would this hand be used for? The answer was that it had to be used for an incredible amount during the five exciting and varied works that made up the excellent concert.’”
Throughout her career, she has always maintained dual roles as a musician and educator. As a member of the esteemed Ju Percussion Group, she taught at the Ju Percussion Music School for many years in Taiwan and China, which stands as the largest percussion school in the world. She also taught at Academy of Music at Suzhou University of Science and Technology in China, as she contributed to establishing the percussion section. She has employed at Odsherred Musikskole, where she teaches percussion and also piano and music theory. Her recent lecture activities including lecture tour in China and masterclasses in Taiwan.
Michael Murphy
Hailed as “excellent” (New York Times, 2022) and “captivating” (Myanmar Times, 2018), Chinese-Canadian percussionist Michael Murphy has toured North America, Scandinavia, Europe, and Asia as a chamber and solo musician. Though having performed in groups such as the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and the Philharmonisches Orchester Freiburg, his focus is in contemporary music and performance of new works. In Canada, this involves him in groups such as New Music Concerts, Array Music, Soundstreams, and the Esprit Orchestra, and with festivals such as Nuit Blanche, the New Creations Festival, 21C Festival at Koerner, and the Luminato Festival. Internationally, this has brought him on multiple occasions to the 2D2D Festival in the Ukraine and the Darmstadt Ferienkurse für neue Musik in Germany, among others.
As an advocate of Canadian music and in charge of most of his programming, Michael has brought Canadian music to international waters. He has worked closely with Canadian composers such as Alice Ping Yee Ho and Kotoka Suzuki, and his international connections have brought about new works for percussion from the USA, Hong Kong, Poland, Ukraine, China, and Germany. Not just as a solo performer, but as a chamber musician in groups such as Duo Holz (with Aysel Taghi-Zada), Freesound Collective, and various ad hocs, he is an avid commissioner.
A practitioner of non-Western arts, Michael has studied Japanese taiko, Iranian tombak, and spent seven months in Osaka studying Gagaku with members of the Shitennoji Gagaku troupe Garyokai. As a continuation of his Masters thesis Reflections on Western contemporary art music through the study of Gagaku, he is now pursuing a PhD at the Université franco-allemande to research temporality in Japanese Gagaku music and traditional arts. Since 2020, he has been an avid performer and commissioner of the shō with the release of a mini-album for shō and clarinet coming in March.
Since 2021 he has been part of Beth Morrison Project’s production tour of Book of Moutains and Seas with Ars Nova Copenhagen,composer Huang Ruo, and director Basil Twist. It has been presented in Copenhagen, New York and Amsterdam with plans for China, Hong Kong, and multi-city United States tours. In commercial work, he has been a featured on the Cuphead videogame as a xylophone soloist both for the official PS4 commercial and the Delicious Last Course album and game.
Upcoming 2022-2023 season highlights include a performance of the Paul Creston marimba concertino with the Rose Orchestra, the continuation of the tour with Ars Nova with a CD release, and recording for two albums featuring works written for Michael.
ARS NOVA Copenhagen
is a twelve-voice ensemble specialising in Renaissance and contemporary repertoire. The ensemble’s performances are marked with precision and verve and with a sound that attracts attention worldwide.
ARS NOVA has made many recordings and won numerous awards, including a GRAMMY for The Little Match Girl Passion with music by David Lang. A series for the Dacapo label features numerous reference recordings of key works by some of the most important contemporary Danish composers. A complete recording of the narrative works for Christmas and Easter by Heinrich Schütz and a series of recordings featuring music by John Taverner and his contemporaries in Tudor England have won much acclaim in the international music press. This recording of Huang Ruo’s Book of Mountains and Seas is the last recording made under chief conductor Paul Hillier who stepped down in 2022 after 20 years. In March 2024 Sofi Jeannin was appointed chief conductor.
