Ivar Frounberg (born 12 April 1950, in Søborg) is a Danish composer,

organist An organist is a musician who plays any type of organ. An organist may play solo organ works, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers or instrumental soloists. In addition, an organist may accompany congregational ...

, and

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who professes". Professor ...

emeritus ''Emeritus'' (; female: ''emerita'') is an adjective used to designate a retired chair, professor, pastor, bishop, pope, director, president, prime minister, rabbi, emperor, or other person who has been "permitted to retain as an honorary title ...

of composition at the

Norwegian Academy of Music The Norwegian Academy of Music (Norwegian: ''Norges musikkhøgskole'', NMH) is a university-level music conservatory located in Oslo, Norway, in the neighbourhood of Majorstuen, Frogner. It is the largest music academy in Norway and offers the c ...

Life

Ivar Frounberg was first educated as an organist, graduating in 1976 from the

Royal Danish Academy of Music The Royal Danish Academy of Music, or Royal Danish Conservatory of Music ( da, Det Kongelige Danske Musikkonservatorium), in Copenhagen is the oldest professional institution of musical education in Denmark as well as the largest, with approxima ...

, and later studied composition with

Niels Viggo Bentzon Niels Viggo Bentzon (Copenhagen, 24 August 1919 – Copenhagen, 25 April 2000) was a Danish composer and pianist. Biography Bentzon was the son of Viggo Bentzon (1861-1937), Rector of Copenhagen University and Karen Hartmann (1882-1977), co ...

and Ib Nørholm the same place, and with

Morton Feldman Morton Feldman (January 12, 1926 – September 3, 1987) was an American composer. A major figure in 20th-century classical music, Feldman was a pioneer of indeterminate music, a development associated with the experimental New York School ...

in USA and

Iannis Xenakis Giannis Klearchou Xenakis (also spelled for professional purposes as Yannis or Iannis Xenakis; el, Γιάννης "Ιωάννης" Κλέαρχου Ξενάκης, ; 29 May 1922 – 4 February 2001) was a Romanian-born Greek-French avant-garde ...

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

. Ivar Frounberg is professor emeritus at the Norwegian Academy of Music in

Oslo Oslo ( , , or ; sma, Oslove) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population of ...

, where he was senior professor of composition from 2000-2012. He had previously taught as

docent The title of docent is conferred by some European universities to denote a specific academic appointment within a set structure of academic ranks at or below the full professor rank, similar to a British readership, a French " ''maître de con ...

of composition and

electroacoustic music Electroacoustic music is a genre of popular and Western art music in which composers use technology to manipulate the timbres of acoustic sounds, sometimes by using audio signal processing, such as reverb or harmonizing, on acoustical instr ...

at the Royal Danish Academy of Music. In 1995 he received the

Danish Arts Foundation The Danish Arts Foundation ( Danish: Statens Kunstfond) is the principal Danish government funded arts foundation founded by a special Law on 27 May 1964. Statens Kunstfond alongside the :da:Statens Kunstråd (English sometimes State Arts Council ...

's three-year grant for the second time as well as the Carl Nielsen Prize.

Music

Frounberg has embraced Xenakis and Feldman's interest in music as abstract structures. Starting with his 1985-work ''Embryo'' for amplified violin, string trio, piano, synthesizer, and tape the electronic resources became increasingly important in Frounberg's work, and in 1989 he composed the first large-scale Danish work for computer, ''What did the Sirens Sing as Ulysses sailed by?'' which is composed for live-electronics and orchestra. The music is deliberately ambiguous – its title referring to a riddle based on the twelfth book of

Homer Homer (; grc, Ὅμηρος , ''Hómēros'') (born ) was a Greek poet who is credited as the author of the '' Iliad'' and the '' Odyssey'', two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Homer is considered one of ...

Odyssey The ''Odyssey'' (; grc, Ὀδύσσεια, Odýsseia, ) is one of two major Ancient Greek literature, ancient Greek Epic poetry, epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by moder ...

: If anyone heard the sirens sing, they died – except for Ulysses, who never told anyone what he had heard. So there is no way of knowing what they actually sang. According to Frounberg, this paradox accurately describes how music is experienced in today's media world. Several parts of ''What did the Sirens Sing as Ulysses sailed by?'' are openly structured, allowing the conductor to combine different musical elements, therefore the work will sound different each time it is played

References

External links

Profile at the Danish Composer's Society
(in Danish)
Biography at Edition S (publisher)

Personal website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Frounberg, Ivar 20th-century Danish people 21st-century Danish people 1950 births 20th-century classical composers 21st-century classical composers Danish composers Danish classical organists Male classical organists Living people Royal Danish Academy of Music alumni Royal Danish Academy of Music faculty Norwegian Academy of Music faculty Danish expatriates in Norway 21st-century organists 20th-century Danish male musicians 21st-century male musicians People from Gladsaxe Municipality