ULVO, Therese Birkelund

Therese Birkelund Ulvo studied composition at the Norwegian Academy of Music and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. She is one of the country’s leading young composers and is described as a performer-oriented composer: she does not write a piece for "soprano," but rather for a specific soprano with a specific expressive style. She works with people rather than instruments, engaging in a close collaborative process with the performers for whom she writes. Her music draws inspiration from other artistic fields, such as film, literature, and sound art. She has a close connection to Norwegian traditional music, which incorporates elements such as microtonality, rhapsodic structures, and open forms. Her music is frequently performed both in Norway and abroad. In addition to her work as a composer, she is active as a record producer across several genres, including folk, contemporary music, electronic music, and jazz. Therese served as an "Intro-composer" for Rikskonsertene (Concerts Norway) from 2011 to 2013. In 2015, she received the Lindeman Prize for Young Artists. Her clarinet concerto, written for the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra and soloist Christian Stene, was named a "Recommended Piece" at the 2016 Rostrum. Since 2014, Ulvo has served as artistic director of the Hardanger Musikkfest festival alongside Tora Augestad.