Music you can almost touch. Music full of colour, texture and unexpected sounds. For Danish-American composer Lil Lacy, the orchestra is a place of endless possibilities, where familiar instruments can reveal entirely new sides of themselves.
Her curiosity about sound has taken her from intimate vocal works, chamber pieces, to large-scale orchestral compositions – often exploring the connections between music, nature and the world around us.
Lacy is Composer in Residence with the Danish Philharmonic Orchestra (2024–2027) and held the same position with Gävle Symphony Orchestra during the 2025/26 season. Her recent works include the symphony ELEMENTS (2026), A Mountain of Hope (2026) and the flute concerto Fluidity of Matter and Life (2025).
Her orchestral catalogue also includes Aurōra and Di drømm dæ bringe vos sammel, both from 2023, as well as Aliento del mar, written for accordionist Bjarke Mogensen and Gävle Symphony Orchestra. Her chamber music has been commissioned by musicians including cellist Torleif Thedéen, pianist Marianna Shirinyan and clarinettist Jonas Frølund.
Collaboration plays an important role in Lacy’s work. She enjoys developing music in close dialogue with performers, exploring the possibilities of individual instruments and finding new ways of using the orchestra.
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Alongside her orchestral and chamber music, Lil Lacy has developed a substantial body of work for the stage, including opera, contemporary dance, choral theatre, film and sound installations. Her projects frequently bring together musicians and artists from different disciplines.
Among these works are the chamber opera One world above, another below (2019), the staged choral production CRAWL CRAWL CRAWL (2022) and you’re somehow connected (2020), an 80-minute work for accordion, ensemble, electronics and voices based on August Strindberg’s A Dream Play. The piece marked her debut as a classical composer, opened the gala concert of Aarhus Festival in 2021 and has since been presented in several formats.
Lacy trained as a singer at the Rhythmic Music Conservatory in Copenhagen and is a self-taught cellist. She went on to study composition at the Royal Academy of Music in Aarhus, where her teachers included Simon Steen-Andersen, Niels Rønsholdt and Juliana Hodkinson, with Bent Sørensen as her mentor. She also studied at the University of California San Diego and at Mills College in Oakland with Roscoe Mitchell.
In 2020, she received the Léonie Sonning Talent Prize. Her work with the band Travelling Tribes earned her two Danish Music Awards World for Composer of the Year, in 2013 and 2015.
An active musician herself, Lacy performs as a singer, experimental cellist with, among others, Frk. Jacobsen and Valby Vokalgruppe. She has also contributed to Danish musical life through initiatives such as the Composer Collective and served on the board of the Danish Composers’ Society.
Her compositions are published by Edition Wilhelm Hansen.
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Video
Lil Lacy - Aurōra
Lakes Area Music Festival - August 18, 2024
Christian Reif, conductor
Lil Lacy about Aurōra
Inspired by the wonderful white granite sculpture "Aurora’s Victory" in Gavle, Sweden, Lil Lacy has composed "Aurōra," commissioned by Gavle Symphony Orchestra. "Aurōra" will have its world premiere on September 15, 2023.
CRAWL CRAWL CRAWL
Convoi Exceptionel perform a staged choir piece with 12 singers, experienced from the edge of a swimming pool. A sensitivity analysis in the nature of inequality. A choreographic portrayal of the welfare state and its many flaws.
