Anders Koppel
Biography Anders Koppel
Benjamin Koppel - Saxophone
Benjamin Koppel is the third generation of Denmark’s leading musical family. His grandfather was the composer and pianist Herman D. Koppel , and his father is Anders Koppel , who likewise shines in the dual role of musician and composer. Benjamin is self-taught like his father, and they have had a creative collaboration since Benjamin, as an 11-year-old boy soprano, performed some of his father’s songs. In 1997 the collaboration led to Anders Koppel’s Saxophone Concerto No. 1, written especially for Benjamin’s talents, and in 2004 this was followed by Saxophone Concerto No. 2. When Anders Koppel’s double concerto for saxophone and piano was given its first performance, father and son rounded off the concert with a jam session. Benjamin Koppel has recorded innumerable CDs and performed with jazz masters like Randy Brecker, Phil Woods and Kenny Werner.
Sjælland String Quartet - Ensemble
In 2004, four of the Copenhagen Philharmonic Orchestra’s solo string players became what was later to be called the Sjælland String Quartet. At their Tivoli Gardens Concert Hall debut in 2006, the public experienced their characteristic sound, which continues to make its mark on the musical scene.
The quartet’s programming mixes classical and non-traditional repertoire and includes less well known works by composers like Herman Sandby, Erik Bach, Anders Koppel, Nikos Skalkottas, Dia Succari and Peteris Vasks.
In 2007 the four musicians performed Elvis Costello’s The Juliet Letters at the Royal Opera House in Copenhagen and recorded the two string quartets by Sunleif Rasmussen. This was their first album with Dacapo. The same year the Sjælland String Quartet recorded both quartets by Leos Janác ˇek and performed in Syria, Greece, Italy and the Faroe Islands.
Anders Koppel - Composer
Anders Koppel is classically trained as a clarinettist and pianist, but for several stormy years from 1967 until 1974 he mainly worked with experimental rock music. With his brother Thomas (born 1944) he formed Savage Rose, which became Scandinavia’s leading experimental rock group. After the break with Savage Rose Anders Koppel’s musical career has been very broad. He has composed music for over 150 films and 50 plays and ballets, and for almost 25 years he has played Balkan-inspired music in the trio Bazaar. Since the mid-1980s he has increasingly worked with classical genres and forms. This has led to several instrumental concertos and a string quartet, and here too one hears Anders Koppel’s love of music-making and eclectic idiom. In 1998 he was awarded a lifetime grant from the National Arts Foundation, and in 1999 he won yet another honour, when he was asked to compose the music for the first new ballet production in decades for Tivoli’s historic Pantomime Theatre, to celebrate its 125th anniversary.
