Music is music to me. Love is unconditional. I have the option to choose to listen or let the music flow through me. I have the freedom to express myself. I can let my emotions be captured by the music. Unconsciously or conscious, I can feel all of my emotions in the music, joy, sorrow, longings, fear, and anger. My childhood was the beginning of my love for music. I was able to share my love of music with others at the local music school. The Musical Moment, where everything is connected, was the moment I first experienced. It was Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto. This was the moment that made me feel a profound sense of the musical universe. That moment was a blessing that I had the opportunity to experience again later in my life. It happened during a workshop that Quest, an American group, held with Dave Liebman and others. It was an amazing revelation. Their music opened up a vast world of possibilities with all the colours of the globe. They inspired me to pursue my musical passions. I studied musicology at the University of Copenhagen, and then at the Conservatory of Rythmic Music. I started to compose music for small and large ensembles. In the 1990s, I began composing music for my own jazz quintet. My debut concert was at Jazzhouse Montmartre in early 1990s. My studies were the time I learned how to instrument classical music. Erik Moseholm asked me to compose a piece for the Danish Radio Concert Orchestra, where I was the soloist. Later, I had the chance to compose for The Symphony Orchestra of Aalborg and the Athelas Ensemble. I was a participant in “The Third Way” workshop with several classical composers as inspirations (Per Norgaard and Hans Abrahamsen among others). I also completed my two-year studies of composition at Conservatory of Rythmic Music, where Bob Brookmeyer and Svend Hvidtfeldt Nielson were my main teachers. Since 2003, I have been composing music and have released two CDs as a leader for my 8-piece orchestra Heartbeats. The Kaev Studio was a major source of the music. Over the years, I have also composed music for Carsten Dahl’s duo. Two cds have been released by us: Lys pa himlen and Det gyldne landskab. Furthermore I have composed for the Dahl/Lundgaard/Riel/Dahl and Dahl/Danielsson/Mazur/Dahl quartets. The last five years have seen me touring and composing together with my trio, which consisted of Jesper Lundgaard b) and Morten Lund dr. To critical acclaim, we released our first CD on Storyville Records in 2010. Jesper Lundgaard and Espen Laub Von Lillienskjold now make up my trio. Recently Niclas Knudsen g (g) joined us and added new dimensions and colors to our music. As a composer, I continue to seek greater freedom and new challenges. It is very important to me that my music creates a space of freedom. My goal is to develop and challenge new expressions in my music, as well as create new musical sounds. I am looking for an expression that reflects the personalities of the musicians who will be using it. I write music specifically for the personalities of musicians I know who will be performing my music. My music is well-constructed, but there’s always room for interpretation. Harmonic freedom gives us the opportunity to create thematic structures, while giving each voice an independant personality while still ending in the same musical expression. http://christinadahl.dk
