Phone: 79 30 11 50

Danish National Philharmonic Orchestra / Sønderjyllands Symfoniorkester

Alsion 2, 6400 Sønderborg

The dreams that bring us together

For some of the orchestra's followers, Lil Lacy is not unknown. She composed the overture Your dreams bring you together for the Sønderjylland Symphony Orchestra's season opening concert in 2023. The work is inspired by the history of Sønderjylland, and that of dreaming about and fighting for a better future together. An overture that, like a musical poem, pays tribute to the fact that together we can change and create the world we live in. The work contains fragments of Southern Jutland shows such as It has been raining so recently and Madeleine. The collaboration on this work created a desire to dream further together as orchestra and composer. That is why we are very happy to announce that composer Lil Lacy will be a resident artist at Sønderjylland's Symphony Orchestra 2024-2027!

COMMUNITY AND CONNECTION

Lil Lacy is a trained singer from Rytmisk Musikkonservatorium, self-taught cellist and has played and sung with several bands; toured Europe, USA and Japan and appeared on award-winning music releases. The interest in composing grew in parallel with her work as a musician. After studying at the Jutland Conservatory of Music, Lil Lacy debuted as a classical composer in 2020 with the premiere of the 80 min. long gesamtkunstwerk; you're somehow connected performed by accordionist Bjarke Mogensen, Århus Sinfonietta, electronics and voices. The work is about connections between people across times, generations and places, and opened Aarhus Festuge's Gala Concert in 2021, where Her Majesty Queen Margrethe gave a speech about communities and connections.

In 2020, Lil Lacy also received Léonie Sonning's talent award for her work as a composer and musician.

RESONANCE AND SENSITIVITY

Composer Lil Lacy seeks a deep poetry in his works, which are often inspired by the times we live in and stories we share.

CRAWL CRAWL CRAWL, a work for 12 singers staged in a swimming pool, where the social realist text combined with beautiful singing and the smell of chlorine evokes many memories, described as "a joint gasp after the weather" by Kristeligt Dagblad.

Morild, for chamber ensemble, connects the natural phenomenon of wildfire with the experience of the inner passion of the soul in a concert series focusing on women in the arts: "Lil Lacy has exploited the ability of the instruments to sound like soft ocean waves and fleeting impressions in a very beautiful way," writes Rachel Einarsson in Classic Desk.

Lil Lacy's works are largely about the meeting of people with each other and with nature, where sound and resonance invite sensitivity in and between us.

MOON

Through her upbringing and her work, Lil Lacy has been shaped by the meeting between several cultures and genres: her father is Butch Lacy (1947-2018), American, jazz pianist and composer, and her mother is Birgitte Frieboe, from Southern Jutland, raised in Augustenborg, a singer and has sang both modern and classical music, i.a. as a soloist with the Southern Jutland Symphony Orchestra.

Lil Lacy has spent many hours of her childhood at Als, when her grandparents Edith Kathrine Larsen and Carl Otto Larsen lived in Augustenborg and had a summer house, an old scout cabin, near Sebbelev. The gentle nature, stories about the resistance movement, the Alsatian dialect, the accordion club, the Viking ship Sebbe-Als, Augustenborg Castle, countless summers and Christmas evenings, as well as the pride in and love for tradition, the area and togetherness, stand strong in the memories. Lil Lacy's uncle Søren Frieboe has released the CD I'm humming a song, with Alsace shows. The family's bond with the South Jutland songs and stories has always been noticeable.

So for Lil Lacy, it is a very special feeling to return home when she has to compose works for exactly the Sønderjylland Symphony Orchestra.

For Lil Lacy, it is of great value that an orchestra chooses to create a long-term collaboration with a composer: "By giving time and space to develop the dialogue and experience over time, the knowledge and understanding of each other, the music and the common language is developed , and thus the meeting between people is strengthened. This will hopefully increase the sense of belonging and curiosity. I look forward to getting to know the orchestra and to dialogue with the musicians and management, as well as the audience across generations. The dialogue will provide inspiration for the new works and collaborations that I am already dreaming of, and which over the next few years must be developed, written down, processed and brought to life.”

THE MEETING ACROSS

An orchestra with focused, curious and passionate orchestral musicians is one of the most beautiful things there is. For many new composers, working with orchestras feels intimidating. In the meeting with the SSO and the long-term collaboration, Lil Lacy will become much more experienced in composing for orchestra, as well as in communicating with the orchestra; the musicians, the conductor and the management – and their audience:

"There is no doubt that a long-term collaboration helps to improve my skills as a composer. The fact that I will also be able to dialogue with the audience in a part of the country that I know and care about, over a longer period of time and with more performances, will mean that I can begin to know and understand this audience better. The ones to whom I am ultimately trying to communicate. You must never forget the audience, without them the concert hall feels empty on several levels. We experienced this particularly clearly during corona. I also find this part of the collaboration very important."

A long-term collaboration between a composer and an orchestra is of great value to both parties, a mutual inspiration.

"It is completely unique for an orchestra to be able to create a long-term relationship with one of the leading composers of our time and thereby develop artistically together." says music director Adam Stadnicki.

Lil Lacy's purely musical breadth, the natural curiosity and the idea that music can strengthen the meeting between people, runs like a deep vein in the music and the experiences that will be created when Sønderjylland's Symphony Orchestra has Lil Lacy as resident artist from 2024-2027.

A podcast is created in parallel in several episodes, which follows the composer and orchestra throughout the period. The first episode will be published in the spring of 2025.

Via the podcast and the new works, the audience will be able to learn Lil Lacy's tonal language and seem to know it better.

We are very much looking forward to the dreams and works that will bring us together.

Photographer: Rune Svenningsen
en_GB