Classical Summer Concert: Christina Bjørkøe - Familiar and Unknown Gems

Once again, the Classical Summer Concerts are delighted to present a range of world-class musicians, performing amongst the Roman gods and heroes in the Glyptotek’s atmospheric Central Hall.

Per Nørgård passed away last year at the age of 92, as the most significant Danish composer of his generation. He not only wrote groundbreaking symphonies, choral works, and chamber music - he also composed the score for Gabriel Axel’s Academy Award-winning film Babette’s Feast and reused much of that music in other works. Although Nørgård wrote the piano piece Peach Blossom, subtitled Far Eastern Blues, back in 1976, it was never performed during his lifetime and was in fact only premiered earlier this year by Christina Bjørkøe.

While Per Nørgård explored a wide range of genres, Frédéric Chopin never wrote a single work in which his own instrument, the piano, was not part of the soundscape. Christina Bjørkøe - who has studied at the Juilliard School of Music in New York and is now one of Denmark’s leading soloists - reveals two sides of Chopin: the intimate, nocturnal atmosphere of his nocturnes and the full virtuoso brilliance of the grand concerto form. Here presented in the composer’s own arrangement, where the soloist must not only perform the usual solo part but also take on the role of an entire orchestra.