RDAM has appointed two new Associate Professors
The Royal Danish Academy of Music has appointed two new associate professors as of 1 April 2021: the flautist Ulla Miilmann and the clarinettist John Kruse.
Max Artved, Professor of Woodwinds at RDAM, comments:
“Ulla Miilmann is an amazing musician, with whom I have enjoyed playing for many years in the Danish National Symphony Orchestra. We have travelled together through the landscapes of music, and have often melded both tonally and musically. In recent years, Ulla has gained international recognition as a teacher of the flute, and I couldn’t imagine a better musician to develop the flute class at RDAM.
“I admire John Kruse for his fantastic achievements in the Royal Danish Orchestra. His beautiful solo playing with the orchestra, and the times he has performed with it as a soloist, are highly memorable. At the Academy, I got to know John both as an incredibly inspiring teacher and as something of a father figure to his students. John also possesses an ability to formulate quotations that later stand as maxims for his students.
“I am looking forward to working with Ulla and John, and I believe that together, we can develop the woodwind programme at RDAM so that it becomes a powerful beacon on the world map.”
Ulla Miilmann studied flute at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. In 1994, at the age of 22, she was hired as a solo flautist in the Danish National Symphony Orchestra, after playing flute with the Royal Danish Orchestra for two years. Ulla has been a soloist with the Danish regional orchestras and with international symphony orchestras such as the National Taiwan Symphony Orchestra and the St Petersburg State Academic Philharmonia. She has recorded several CDs, both as a soloist and as a member of the DRSO wind quintet, and was the initiator of the release of Ole Schmidt’s solo concertos for wind instruments. Her recording of his flute concerto received a Grammy nomination. In 2011 Ulla was hired by RDAM as a part-time teacher, and she has also been a guest teacher at academies of music in Strasbourg, Geneva, Leuven, Shanghai and elsewhere. In the course of her career she has received many awards and scholarships, including the Carl Nielsen Grand Honorary Scholarship in 2017.
John Kruse studied clarinet at the Carl Nielsen Academy of Music and the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris. He was hired as a solo clarinettist by the Royal Danish Orchestra in 2005, after having been a solo clarinettist in the Odense Symphony Orchestra in the period 1989-2005. Alongside his orchestral career, he has been an active chamber musician in Den Fynske Blæserkvintet, Trio Chalumeau, Stadler Kvintet, Trio Westwood, Nordisk Kammermusikfestival and Equinox Chamber Music Festival. John has recorded several CDs, both as a chamber musician and as a soloist, and has been a soloist with orchestras such as the Royal Danish Orchestra, the Danish National Symphony Orchestra and the Danish regional orchestras, the Czech Chamber Orchestra and the Wroclaw Chamber Orchestra. New music and collaboration with the composers is very important to him, and he has given premiere performances of works by Ole Schmidt, Jesper Koch, Anders Koppel, Niels Viggo Bentzon and Bo Holten. John has been a part-time teacher at RDAM since 2008 and has also given masterclasses at academies of music in Brussels, Paris, Boston, Salerno and elsewhere.
