Education
Master in Musicology from University of Copenhagen (1985).
Artistic and administrative management
Board member of The Young Composers’ Society (Danish section of ISCM World Music Days 1985-89), artistic and administrative leader from 1985-87.
Member of the executive board of ISCM World Music Days, including work in international juries (1991-96).
Member of the artistic committee of the NUMUS Festival in Aarhus (1996-98).
Commissioned by the Nordic Council of Ministers to be artistically and administratively responsible for the planning and implementation of the Nordic-Irish new music festival Up North! in Dublin, designed as a collaboration with Nordic and Irish cultural institutions (2002).
Responsible for the Nordic Council of Ministers’ cultural focus area The Nordic-Balkan-Culture-Switch in the Western Balkans (2003-2005).
Artistic and administrative director of Norway’s one-hundredth anniversary at The Royal Theatre in Copenhagen on November 7, 2005. In concurrence, editor of the jubilee book ‘One hundred years and half the kingdom. A jubilee book for Norway and Denmark’ (Aschehough Publishing).
CEO and Artistic Director of Athelas Sinfonietta Copenhagen (2006-2012).
Co-founder of INTEGRA, an EU project with new technology that brings European ensembles, composers and research centres together (2007).
Co-founder of Re:New Music, an EU-backed music project designed to create mobility in Europe between creators and performers (2007).
CEO and Artistic Director of the Copenhagen Opera Festival (2009-2012).
CEO and Artictic Director of Athelas New Music Festival (2009-2012).
Board member of Østre Gasværk Theatre (2012-2016).
Board member of Western Norway’s Brussels Office (2012-2015).
CEO and Artistic Director of Bergen International Festival (2012-2021).
Jury member in Applaus, an audience development project aimed at integrating audience development into the work, objectives and strategy of the performing arts in Denmark (2019).
Jury member of the Design Effectiveness Awards, Design Business Association, London (2019).
Member of the committee of The International Ibsen Award, Oslo (2019-2021).
Research / communication
Assistant professor at the Institute of Musicology at the University of Copenhagen (1986-1992).
Editor-in-chief of the Danish Music Review (1989-2007).
Editor of the Nordic Council of Ministers’ English edition of Nordic Sounds Magazine (1993-2006).
Guest lecturer at Juilliard School of Music, New York (1990).
Lectures on Nordic culture at universities in, among other countries, the USA, Korea, Russia, England, Sweden, Norway, Ireland, Finland, Iceland, China and Mexico.
Music critic and editor at Dagbladet Information (1995-2004).
Writer at the Great Danish Encyclopedia (1996-2000).
Consultant and writer for The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (2000).
Writer at MGG (Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart) (2000-2002).
Artistic advisor for the Bergen International Festival (2006-2008).
Member of the Danish Arts Council’s committee ‘Visions and criteria for success’ for Danish cultural life (2009).
Professor II, Faculty of Fine Art, Music and Design, University of Bergen (2020-2021).
Published books (a selection)
‘The Music of Per Nørgård. Fourteen interpretative essays.’ (Scolar Press 1996).
‘Music in the Nordic Region’ (Musikaliska akademien 1998).
‘Musikken har ordet’ (Gads Forlag 1993).
‘Texte zur Musik’ 1991-1998, Band 14. “Jeden Tag wird Neues entdeckt”. Conversation with Karlheinz Stockhausen (Stockhausen Verlag).
‘The Voice of Music. Conversations with composers of our time’ (Ashgate Publishing 2001).
‘For the school and for life. On choir singing, manners and learning processes’. A 75th-anniversary book. The song school at Sankt Annæ Gymnasium (DPU’s Publisher 2004).
‘One hundred years and half the kingdom. A jubilee book for Norway and Denmark during the past 100 years’ (Aschehough Publishing 2005).
‘One hundred years offbeat’. Published by the Norwegian Society of Composers, edited by Geir Johnson (2017).
Articles on especially Central European and Nordic classical music in international journals.
Since 2012, a number of chronicles and essays in, among other newspapers, Klassekampen, Politiken, Aftenposten and Bergens Tidende.