Morten Skovgaard Danielsen, 1967, Denmark, holds a diploma in composition from the Royal Academy of Music, Copenhagen.
In 2001, Danielsen was awarded the Haakon Boerresen Prize for “outstanding efforts in the field of contemporary composition”. Alongside other grants, he has successfully headlined international Festivals, given a huge number of interviews on television, radio and in Magazines. In 2002, he announced his 'exit' as a composer and took up writing. His poems have been published in a number of Underground Text-books. In 2004, Danielsen returned to composition. He is currently a constant traveler, receiving commissions from all over the world. After the release of his debut album ROADMOVIE ACCESSORIES 2000/01, he was baptized both 'The enfant terrible' and ' Emblematic for a whole generation' by the press.
BMD: Could you begin by telling us about your current project?
MSD: I am composing an opera which is built up by commissions from ensembles in Europe and the USA. The main goal of this work is an attempt to build a musical symbiosis between Baroque Music and Punk Rock, especially the Grunge movement. I am a huge fan of slap sticks and spent time learning about “Mickey Mouse” techniques as well as my passion of “fairytale-like” or “Magic-Music” is installed in my music. This allows for very sudden change of mood and style such as slap sticks. A lot of cameos are entering the libretto, amongst them Francesco Petrarcha, the Montgolfier Brothers, Che Guevara and Paris Hilton.
BMD: Please tell us about your early works and the various periods you went through.
MSD: I began composing and gave my first concert at age five while attending the Musical Kindergarden in Odense, Denmark. During my time at the academy, I studied every kind of modern composition techniques and I studied hard. I went through three periods of creating music including the “Academic Style”, which offered my knowledge of musical composition mixed up with a manic flirtation with all kinds of Renaissance and Baroque era styles. I easily wasted weeks on writing Palestrina or Bach style movements, especially the fugue. It made me two faced in that by day I would investigate d minor conflicts and at night I was a regular head banger, introducing recordings of early Grunge. The Academy did not approve and considered me a mess.
At age 28, I realized, that the “perfect” piece can never be written. I revised the same piano piece (INSTALLATION, piano solo/electronics, 1994) eleven times in a row. All I learned, was that the “Masterpiece” is outgunned in terms of “over-individualism”. I am not pointing out, that “serious” music - as some people call it to somehow draw a line between music for the classic concert hall and whatever appears to be “not serious”. I am certainly no fan of “work in progress”. Attempting to finish other commissions in this period also failed. I got to a point of “positive depression”. Each OPUS became impossible. Indulging in a high speed life style, I began to provoke without any intension of being provocative at all while just being plain honest about my opinions and attitude. At age 32, I trashed all my home made “systems”, writing the piece TripInVainwithStarsbutSUGARfeelOkay in one single afternoon during a severe hangover in South Italy. In Paris, during the fall of 2000, I gave up any attempt of writing what I felt would at least somehow resemble a “finished” piece, re-writing D-TOX for violin solo (originally written in Rome 1999 for a small ensemble). My perfectionism was at last installed in the tempo in which I from then on enjoyed to compose. My Dogma opera was composed in 21 hours, in which I was locked up in a hotel rom. I wrote both the libretto and the music, using note sheets marked by the Danish Radio Broadcast Company. It began as a show off and ended up performed 12 times in a row during 2005.
BMD: What aspects of your earlier works is still present in your work today?
MSD: Farthest from your mind is the thought of falling back. In fact, it isn´t here at all, so you dig your hole carefully and you wait.
BMD: Who is influencing you now?
MSD: People! People like the Basso Moderno Duo. Contradictions! I love contradictions as much as I hate boarders between nations. I look upon every single life as a type of installation. Existence is art in itself and every second is a performance. Someone once said: “A sculpture is something you stumble upon in a museum, moving backwards to get a better glance of a painting.” That is my point. I constantly “stumble” over people and I install them in my memory as sculptures. Modigliani saw people the same way. That would explain his obsession with portraits, eyes without pupils, and open spaces of never-seen landscapes. Every individual is a piece of art and vice-versa, which puts the definition of “art for art’s stake” as well as being mere existence. All of that influences me.
BMD: Is your music in a single style or do your compositions differ from work to work?
MSD: I tend to write very energetic music with lots of grace notes. This has been my style over the past thirteen years. Both the music of Bach and Cobain was equally important to me. It was my goal to create a symbiosis between baroque music and Punk-Rock. I am a mixture of Stockhausen, Cobain, myself and hard core punk.
BMD: From the interviewers’ perspective, your music challenges the traditional classical music listener. Which one of your pieces/projects do you feel pushes your own boundaries?
MSD: That would be the CD project SHOTGUN DIARY (2001-02) and my first opera ABSENSE.
BMD: Do you prefer to compose music that will ultimately be performed live or music which is meant solely for recording?
MSD: Both. Live performances are still limited to festivals, concert halls, underground scenes, or whatever. The recording is much more powerful. It is the way people absorb art these days.
