photo Wilfred Gachau
Hanne Tofte Jespersen
composer
member of Danish Composers' Society, Danish Musicians Union &
IAWM (international alliance for women in music)
AUDIO
VIDEO (Vimeo)
LIST OF WORKS pdf - will open in new window
CVpdf - will open in new window
I like to bridge performers and audiences. My own background is a broad one, I have roots in both classical European music, choir traditions, folk tones as well as world music, the latter after years of stay and work in West Africa.
As an artist I'm dedicated to making the invisible audible. I explore the outer and the inner world with my voice. Motives emerge through intuitive singing, and I quickly write them down as they are my key material to composing.
INSPIRATIONS
Some of my works have an underlying narrative. In other cases I have worked abstractly on basis of occurring motives. I also find it inspiring to compose for projects where children and youth meet and perform with professional musicians. I have created series of such interactive & collaborate works.
ETRURIA SUITE
is scored for
violin og double bass.
Concerts.
LISTEN to recording here:
WORKS FOR STRINGS
The work has an underlying tale inspired by the Pyrgi tablets, an Etruscan artefact dedicated the goddess Uni Astri/ Astarte/ Ishtar.
IMAGINE a local king under pressure who calls upon the Goddess of fertility as she is also their protector in times of war. 
Imagine the dialogue between the two.
He actually adresses her in writing, on the tablets. Imagine the passage between this world and the invisible world - is it open, will they meet? In speech, in dancing? The answer is of course blowing in the wind...
.. I tried to set it to music.
In 2020 I revised the suite into a 6 movement work (15 min). This version is recorded by Duo Kjærbye-Maschmann and released online 2022. The duo performs it during concerts in 2023-25.
ETRURIA Suite was initiated during a stay in Tuscania, Italy in 2016 and completed during the project
OPEN-MUSIC-WORK-PLACES
at Museum of Contemporary Art
where I was engaged as a composer in November 2016.
In December the music was 1st performed at Vendsyssel Art Museum at a concert featuring composers and musicians. We introduced the new works from two workshop projects and engaged audiences in open dialogue on the new pieces.
MELANGELL - HONEY ANGEL
a key production for Ensemble Music for the Mysteries is available on CD.
In 2014 Stefan Parkman conducted a series of special performances of this work in Iceland
during Skálholt Summer Concerts
with Music for the Mysteries,
South Iceland Chamber Choir and
actor María Ellingsen as storyteller.
to info, audio, reviews on the Melangell work..
COMPOSER NEWS
READ - VIEW - LISTEN
Click on images to see actual size.
Click on links to listen to the music.
Image- and audio files will open in seperate windows. Enjoy!
Winter - Spring 2025
Winter and spring 2025 offers several opportunities to experience my music live at concerts - see
CALENDAR
In January I completed a commissioned work for the Swedish mezzo soprano
Idil Alpsoy. I have set a sonet by Inger Christensen to music, about moonlight.
1st performance in 2026.
2024
A year of very exciting commissions:
Composer at Cabaret
DE FORSTUMMEDES TALE
THE SPEECH OF THE SILENCED ONES
PREMIERE at
KONCERTKAPELLET
VIDEO
6 - 8 Sept 2024
This new classical CABARET
is centered around
Anna Akhmatova's masterly poems -
An ALLEGORY OF THE PRESENT TIMES
- taking its starting point in the short rise of free creativity within Russian theatre in the 1910's.
The Avantgarde artists of the time met at the cabaret stages of St Petersburg. Among them were Anna Akhmatova and director of theatre Vsevolod Meyerhold.
Both later became friends of Shostakovich.
I have set Akhmatova-poems to music as a parallel work to Shostakovich' 'Blok-Romances' which are also heard. Music for soprano, violin, cello, piano - and with two actors also.
Meet the dream team:
Gitta-Maria Sjöberg,
Julia Lindgren,
Elisabeth Zeuthen Schneider, John Ehde, Polina Fradkina, Thomas Bang, Yury Vladovsky.
Director Mette Borg; light designer Mikkel Magnus Olsen;
video editor Yury Vladovsky; music by Hanne Tofte Jespersen and D.D.Sjostakovitj.
INFO (pdf)
SPONSORS:
Øernes Kunstfond/ The Regional Arts Foundation for Zealand and Funen; Roskilde District; the private fonds
Augustinus, William Demant, Knud Højgaard, WH;
Danish Composers Society/ KODA Culture.
PIANO WORK FOR
AMALIE MALLING
Amalie Malling commissioned a piece to be 1st performed during her solo recital at the festival TIDLØS/ TIMELESS.
A great honour to write for her as one of Scandinavia's most excellent pianists.
3 Nov 2024.
NORDIC SONG FESTIVAL
invited me to be their
composer-in-residence
2024
in Trollhättan (SE).
This entailed a series of vocal music for highly acclaimed soloists, including a 16 min song cycle for Danish soprano Inger Dam-Jensen and Swedish pianist Mats Jansson who 1st performed the cycle during the Opening Concert of the festival.
Furtheremore a song for the young Swedish very talented baritone David Risberg in duo with the Danish pianist Christina Bjørkøe.
For all these new songs I have chosen poems by Inger Christensen.
AVAILABLE ON STREAMING
2023
REVIEW: String Quartet No 1
"Times of Unrest"
highly acclaimed in US journal
NEW SOLO PIECE
In July Clarinettist ANNA KLETT
1st performed
Metamorphoses - a Solo Dialogue
for Clarinet in Eb and Basset Horn (F)
Anna commissioned Metamorphoses for her 3 solo concerts during the festival Summartónar,Faroe Islands 2023.
Thank you very much to Danish Composer's Society / Koda Culture, Louis-Hansen Fond and Danish Arts Foundation for supporting the composer's fee.
NEW ALBUM
Hanne Tofte Jespersen
'WORKS FOR STRINGS'
FANTASIA for soloviolin
in view of J.S.Bach
THE NEW DAWNING
duo
for two violins
ETRURIA SUITE
for violin & double bass
LISTEN in high end / CD quality:
Soundcloud
Spotify
ProStudioMasters
THANK YOU Koda Culture, DMF, the Soloists Association for support!
read more...
2022
NEW CD:
String Quartet TIMES OF UNREST 'UROLIGE TIDER'
label DANACORD DACOCD 945
Thank you to the sponsors of this album:
Danish Arts Foundation, Augustinus, Beckett,
Louis-Hansen,
KODA Culture, DMF, DMF Roskilde, Solistforeningen
REVIEWS
I composed this string quartet for the context of Haydn's Opus 76,2 (1797-98) and Britten's String Quartet No 1 (1941) - read more..
NEW COLLABORATIONS &
NEW COMMISSIONS:
NEW WORK FOR SOPRANO & PIANO:
"To Return To Where One Has Never Been Before"
Duo Karhuluoma-Andersson w/ Noora Karhuluoma, soprano from Finland & pianist Ida Andersson from the Åland Islands has invited Nordic composers to create new pieces.
As a Danish composer for their new concert series they chose me and commissioned a major piece . It has given me the opportunity to set an amazing new poem by Norwegian Marit Tusvik to
music.
Thanks a lot to the sponsors of composer's fee:
Augustinus Fonden, Louis-Hansen Fonden, Dkf/Koda Culture.
1st perf. 2 Oct in Art Song Aarhus; also performed 4 Novin Ribe.
FULL MOON' for 2 clarinets and piano for CATHY WOOD & JENNY MACLAY
I met Canadian CATHY WOOD in 2021 during Nordic Music Days when she played the 1st clarinet part in my Vibrandring-piece. She is a clarinet professor at Brandon University, Canada, and has an international carrier as a solo and chamber music clarinetist, incl. in a duo collaboration with Jenny Maclay. In 2022 Cathy commissioned a new piece by me for their Nordic program. I submitted 'FULL MOON' to them 1 May, and they are 1st performing the piece 2 July in Nevada US during the Int. Clarinet Fest 2022.
Thanks to DKF/ Koda Culture for supporting the composer's fee.
NEW ALBUM 'WORKS FOR STRINGS'
In April-May 2022 three of my other works for string instruments have been studio recorded. This is for an online ALBUM with:
- ETRURIA - Suite for violin & double bass 
with Kuno Kjærbye and Heiko Maschmann;
- THE NEW DAWNING - duo for to violins with Øssur Bæk and Kuno Kjærbye;
- FANTASIA IN VIEW OF J.S.BACH for soloviolin,
with Kuno Kjærbye.
Thanks to KODA Culture, DMF, Solistforeningen for supporting this album!
2021
"VIBRANDRING FO-100" at
Nordic Music Days
September 2021
at the Faroe Islands
In a 3 weeks composer in residence with artist talk, workshops with Faroese students and rehearsals with them together with sinfonietta and conductur Bernhardur Wilkinsson from the Faroese Symphony Orchestra, this work for singers and sinfonietta was performed
3 Sept. 2021 as part of the festival programme
FINDING CONSORTS
upcoming album
with 4 excellent consort players
based in Berlin.
EmmanuelleBernard - baroque violin,
Heidi Gröger - viola da gamba,
Andreas Arend - theorbe,
Núria Sanromà Gabàs - zink (cornetto).
Together they comprise a broken consort ensemble. In Nov. 2021 they gave my piece and 2 other works their Danish 1st performance during festival
TIDLØS / Timeless in Cph. and Roskilde. After the last concert the ensemble studio recorded Arend's, Kjærbye's and my piece.
FINDING CONSORTS is inspired by Gwyddbwyll -
a magical board which the medieval Welsh bards describe in the legends of Celtic-brythonic mythology.
Imagine two players - a visible from our world playing the red-and-white upper side of the board; an invisible, otherworldly player playing the board's white-and-red lower side - and these two players play together in order to bring the inner and outer world into alignment.
The wonderful sounding wind instrument ZINK - some calls it a wooden trumpet, but as full of expression as the human voice -
baroque violin and viola da gamba - soft and yet so vibrant - and theTHEORBO - the BASS-lute with its loonng neck due to the added 8 bass strings
We were two Danish and two German composers who in 2019 were commissioned to write works for this 'broken consort' for the festival LÜBECKER LAUTEN LUST.
VIDEO
"FANTASIA in view of J.S.Bach"
for solo violin
My 12 min solo piece is
"A violin tale in which appears prayor to an angel", composed for the context of Bach's great C major Sonata and the
E major Partita for solo violin, and also inspirered by Helga Thoene's research of 'hidden chorals' in Bach's sonatas for solo violin.
Violinist Kuno Kjærbye commissioned this piece for his concert project with Bach's 6 solo sonatas/partiten and works for solo violin commissioned from three Danish composers. Mine was 1st performed 1 Nov. 2020.
Kuno Kjærbye has ever since performed it at a series of concerts. The project was presented just before the break out of the pandemia... view:
http://www.frankensteins-lab.net/labs/the-devil-and-a-new-beginning
KUNO KJÆRBYE recorded FANTASIA May 2022
It is released online on ALBUM
WORKS FOR STRINGS
LISTEN
String quartet 'Times of Unrest':
This title proved almost prophetic...
I rewrote its 4th mov. whilst the pandemia was at its highest during spring 2020.
DR P2
broadcasted the premiere
The historical context is Haydn back in Vienna after his stays in London, then in the shadow of Napoleon rearming France; Britten at the beginning of the 2. world war had emigrated to US where the 1st performance took place, but decided to return to England.
On his journey crossing the Atlantic Ocean he rewrote his shining "Hymn to St Cecilia" to W.H. Auden's beautiful tribute to the guardian spirit of music.
Haydn-Britten and the present times, incl. the current pandemia have formed my inner resonating sound board when composing this quartet. In its 2.movement I have incorporated motifs from the 2nd mov. of Haydn's Opus 76,2. At the beginning and towards the end of the whole piece a certain harmonic structure brings an Hommage à Britten's choir work.
VIDEO
WWW.UROLIGETIDER.DK
BRAGE in Randers commissioned this work in collaboration with Roskilde, Ribe, Lyngby-Taarbæk, Furesø chamber music societies. Together with Nordic String Quartet we developed this programme. Dates and venues
The project is sponsored by Augustinus Foundation,
William Demant Foundation, The Danish Arts Foundation,
Danish Composers Society / KODA Culture.
back to menue
2019
ONLINE ALBUM Passing Through
GITTA-MARIA SJÖBERG & POLINA FRADKINA recorded my song cycle
'På Gjennomreise - Three songs for soprano & piano for poems by Marit Tusvik'.
The album holds my cycle, Matti Borg's
"Cinq poèmes du Prince Concort Henrik",
and Musorgskij's cycle 'The Nursery',
produced by Torsten Jessen.
Released online and available for streaming worldwide and for download on
Presto Classical 2019.
The DUO as well as the Norwegian author Marit Tusvik are inspiring artistic collaborations for me.
In the songs I have reached out for her poems'
clear horizon of lived human experience to make it audible in corresponding transparency.
The Danish Arts Foundation granted composer's fee for this commission, thanks to Roskilde Music Society and their 50 years anniversary celebrations.
GOING TO HEAVEN
My work for male choir reached the final in
Linköping Student Singers' Composition Award 2016.
The choir recorded it in 2017, and in spring 2018
it was released on their album at Spotify.
'Going to Heaven' for TTBBB is to a poem by
Emily Dickinson.
LISTEN..
IF THE LAND COULD TALK
In this project I set urban and rural landscapes to music. In 2014-17 in 8 areas of Roskilde District.
latest project: May-June '17
web: www.hvislandetkunnetale.dk
HVIS LANDET KUNNE TALE
means "IF THE LAND COULD TALK"
and the project was titled so because
If the land could talk,
it would have a lot to tell...
so I decided to set its silent speech to music together with 4-5 yr old children. We walk and sing the land of their local landscape, I compose based on the walks.
By June 2017 in all 48 kindergardens / 1200 children had taken part.
I have done 320 walks with children and composed
8 music works, each 25 min,
with in all 41 songs and 31 interludes scored for choreographed childrens voices & professional instrumentalists in varying trio combinations.
sponsors: Roskilde District, Danish Arts Foundation, Danish Musicians Union
to video, music, photos, visual art
to summary in English:
scroll down Frankenstein's Lab at Dome of Visions 30 Nov 2015
to find summary of my presentation during that event.
FARVESPILLET
The PLAY OF COLOURS
This interactive music tale of mine
has been performed/produced by:
- ESBJERG ENSEMBLE
in two series of school- & family concerts in 16/17, featuring me in the role of story teller -
cf press coverage with video.
- GLOSTRUP DISTRICT
Glostrup music school has produced it
in all the district's primary schools
in Oct 2017 and in April-May 2019.
- DR festival
NEW INTERACTIVE MUSIC TALES
for children in 2013.
Here my tale was 1st performed after
being among the winners in their competition.
- read more and see photos below
AUDIO IMAGES 2017-18
LISTEN to 'SPLINTRET LYKKE /
Splintered Happiness'
with ENSEMBLE STORSTRØM
- the 7.mov. of commissioned work composed in 2017 for the ensemble's outreach project
'THE GARDEN - 3 Tales'
I created themusic as 'audio images' (to be performed live)
on the garden / park of Fuglsang Manor House
and some common figures whose lives were
connected with the garden -
in no. 7 it is
a young servant maid whose happiness is broken.
Produced by Ensemble Storstrøm in a collaboration
with Fuglsang Art Museum, Museum Lolland-Falster and Kulturtjenesten.
These eight HØREBILLEDER /Audio images
(30 min for fl,cl,bs,hp,p, vl,vla,vcl) now form the concert
of the project and bridges a historical insight into
'Fuglsang of the past' on the one hand,
and a visual art workshop on the other.
LISTEN TO 'WHY MUST I TOIL'...
the 2nd Audio Image
FARVESPILLET
THE PLAY OF COLOURS
in DR Concert House Studio 4:
1st performance with Anna Klett, clarinet - Anrijs Ivanovskis, bassoon - Vera Panitch, violin - David Hildebrandt, perc, Hanne Tofte Jespersen, storyteller.
Danish Composers Association and DR-Musikariet (Radio Denmark) launched a competition in 2012 aiming at new music tales for children in which children would play an active tole in the storyline.
My proposal "Farvespillet / The Play of Colours"
were among the winners.
LISTEN to extracts:
3.mov BLUE (mp3; dur 4:25)
or
10 min sample with interaction (mp3; dur 10:03)
A 40 minutes interactive music tale for 5-8 year old children in which each instrument represents a colour and a character.
THE PLAY OF COLOURS is scored for violin, clarinet, bassoon, percussion*, storyteller and children's audience.
*) marimba, bongos, congas, temple blocks, triangle, chime, cymbal.
"THE PERCUSSION is a BLACK & WHITE jack of all trades who initiates the play. It consists of 4 dances:
The BASSOON has a RED dance full of funny movements, and you are the dancer. The CLARINET loves her YELLOW dance and would greatly prefer to enjoy it with her friend, the violin. The VIOLIN, though, so fast and full of ideas changes the yellow dance, and the clarinet gets angry and does not want to play the BLUE dance of the violin..... Thus the players need the children's help to get the clarinet back into the game so that all may reach the GREEN dance, for you to finally paint it all on the card of the play".
back to menue
'VIBRANDRING' 2019 in Esbjerg-Varde:
The title of this innovative project is derived
from the Danish words for vibrance,
memory/ erindring & wandering/vandring.
VIDEO Sept '19
VIBRANDING 2018/19 prod. by Esbjerg Ensemble
as an 18 min. collaborate work for
professional sinfonietta ensemble plus youth talents.
Vision: To add vibrance to a quarter of the town
by creating a music work for it, basing it on
walking the area together.
The Rørkjær area in Esbjerg
was chosen by the local participants.
VIBRANDRING was
1st performed by Esbjerg Ensemble's
10 musicians together with 15
talented young singers
and instrumentalists from Esbjerg and Varde Music Schools
who had been part of the creative process.
The young talents played side-by-side
with the professional ensemble.
Conductor Arne Balk Møller.
VIBRANDRING SPONSORS:
Danish Arts Foundations and Vadehavspuljen.
LISTEN to GOTTORFER TONGEWEBE
Duo for violin and organ which
Kuno Kjærbye and Erik Hildebrandt-Nielsen first performed April 2017 at
Gottorf Castle Chapel in Schleswig (DE).
I composed two commissioned duos for solo violin & organ for GOTTORFER MUSIK IM LUTHERJAHR
'Gottorfer Tongewebe' ('tone web/ tone weaving'), and 'Hommage à Nicolaus Bruhns'. The museum afterwards chose the piece for their audio station in the exhibition.
The Gottorf Castle Chapel has remained untouched with its wonderful acoustics since the 16th century, and the organ is restored to what it orginally was. So 'Gottorfer Tongwebe' is inspired by the chance of bringing these unique sounds of the past into the present.
During the creative process I had the opportunity to spend two days of writing by thehistorical organ.
The duo Kjærbye & Hildebrandt-Nielsen commissioned these pieces for a programme in which they juxtapose new works with North German baroque music.
