Composer Bent Sørensen appointed Professor at RDAM

The internationally renowned composer Bent Sørensen has been appointed professor at The Royal Danish Academy of Music as of the academic year 2023-24, and will thereby become a beacon in the subject of composition and a central part of RDAM’s high-profile teaching staff. He will run and develop the composition class at RDAM in close collaboration with Jeppe Just Christensen, head of the composition department. Bent Sørensen (b. 1958) is one of the most important composers in Denmark and has a distinguished international career. His works are performed all over the world, and in 2018 he received a major international prize, the Grawemeyer Award, for L’isola della Città. Most recently, he won the 2022 Carl Prize for Classical Composer of the Year with his work Doppelgänger. In addition to composing many important works, including the above-mentioned and the violin concerto Sterbende Gärten, for which he was awarded the Nordic Council Music Prize, he has extensive experience as a teacher of composition. He has previously been a professor at RDAM in 2002-2011 and at Malmö Academy of Music from 2020.



Bent Sørensen’s extensive knowledge of Danish musical life and the musical milieu in new compositional music, not least as long-standing chair of the Danish Composers’ Society, will also help to equip the students for a future working life as composers.



RDAM’s President, Uffe Savery, sees great potential in the upcoming collaboration: “With Bent Sørensen as Professor of Composition, we will possess a broad, competent and complementary teaching team in the subject. There are many artistic paths that one can take as a composer. With this teaching staff, together with the framework and pedagogical ideals of the Academy, we can provide the basis for students to create a sustainable life as composers – both in terms of individual skills and collective co-creation. Our graduates will create and meet the needs of a future musical and cultural life, and conversations with Bent testify to a visionary and versatile approach to creating a rich educational environment, with the close collaboration between composition students, performing musicians and tonmeisters that is the hallmark of RDAM. We are all greatly looking forward to working together.”



Bent Sørensen himself says: “Being a composer can be a lonely job, and it has always been important to me that the individual students can inspire and help each other, rather than enter into various competitive relationships. I believe that my strengths as a teacher can be instrumental in ensuring that RDAM will continue to educate fine, original composers who, both individually and collectively, will make their mark on the artistic scene both in Denmark and abroad. It is also my hope that I can help to contribute to even greater diversity in the composition class at all levels.”

Photo: Lars Skaaning