My name is Steffen Bruun and I sing bass in the vocal ensemble
I joined DR shortly after graduating from the conservatory, but I've managed to sing in most ensembles in Denmark.
I joined the DR Chamber Choir in 2006
I've also done quite a bit outside DR, both in oratorio, but recently also in opera roles, as I find it extremely rewarding to develop the dramatic side of singing. Mostly solo, however, as the ensemble work is nurtured together with my excellent colleagues.
I have several favourite genres: a good mix of opera, lieder, choral music, jazz, noise rock, symphonic music, hip hop and world music. Just to name a few of my favourite things.
The hardest thing I've ever played/sung - I'll never be close friends with Luigi Nono.
My name is Klaus Tönshoff and I play the clarinet. Since 1999 I have been employed by the Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra, which was then called the Radio Symphony Orchestra.
I'm in charge of the piccolo clarinets, which are the E-flat and D clarinets. You recognise the characteristic sound from, for example, the end of Richard Strauss’ tone poem To Eulenspiegel or from the tantalisingly sensual solo in Bolero. Berlioz's wonderful Symphonie Fantastique or Ravel's small jazz piano concerto (the one with both hands!) are just some of the examples where piccolo clarinets come to the fore. The small clarinets are a sonic link between the larger - and therefore deeper - instruments of the woodwinds and all the way up to where only Russell on his piccolo reigns. He and I have some musical collaborations in, for example, Shostakovich's pointed, regime-critical music or Mahler's ethereally beautiful sound treatment. I love being the player on the wing who, with the cheek of a street urchin, contributes to musical quirks and gives a work more edge.
I very much see the piccolo clarinet as a composer's tool for bringing out timbres that, thanks to the orchestra's excellent interplay, make the music appear clearer and more... well... colourful.
I was born in 1975 in Copenhagen and started my musical career in Tivoli-Garden, after which I was admitted to the Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen in 1994 with docent Bendt Neuchs Sørensen, whose orchestra place I am curiously enough now privileged to have got. In my 3rd year I devoted my studies to State University of Music in Karlsruhe with Professors Wolfgang Meyer, Sabine Meyer and Dr Otto Kronthaler. After graduating from the Royal Danish Academy of Music with a diploma in 1999, I continued in the 2-year postgraduate programme, the soloist class. From here I made my debut in autumn 2001. It's funny to think that I got a contract position in the orchestra the day after my diploma degree and became a permanent member the day after my debut concert.
I've always been lucky with study-related work and have - while studying music - assisted in most of the Danish professional orchestras. At the opening of Aarhus Festival in September 2000, I was even soloist (together with our contrabassoonist Aksel Trige) with the Danish National Symphony Orchestra in a work by the Chinese composer Tan Dun. I have also been a soloist with the Tivoli Symphony Orchestra, now called the Tivoli Copenhagen Phil, in August 2002, when I received the Music Critics' Artist Award. Alongside all the music I play myself, I really enjoy directing amateur orchestras. Rødovre Concert Band, the Amateur Symphony Orchestra and the Amadeus Ensemble are just some of the orchestras I get to teach from time to time. I have toured with the latter orchestra on the Faroe Islands as well as in California. On the California tour, the DR Symphony Orchestra's concertmaster, Christina Åstrand, was actually a soloist.
Together we performed quite a few concerts, including Korngold's violin concerto - the one with the third movement that seems like something out of a Hollywood film. There were also a couple of school concerts - and some American students probably dropped their jaws when we told them that Christina's violin was built 80 years before the US Constitution was signed.
In recent years, I have concentrated on where it all began for me - in the Tivoli Gardens, where I teach. It's a fantastically inspiring job that creates a fine counterpart to my work in the Danish National Symphony Orchestra, because the elite work with talented young people at the beginning of the musical food chain creates an inspiring connection to the work in the Danish National Orchestra. It's also fun to follow the young musicians and see them develop and mature musically, to help shape them, just as the previous generation of musicians has helped shape me. Right now, there are 9 musicians in the Danish National Symphony Orchestra who have worn their childhood marching boots in the Tivoli Gardens - and that's a pretty good percentage.
I'm proud to play in an orchestra that is characterised by each musician taking musical risks. Simply staying in the middle of the road and not playing too weak/fast or playing slow/fast to avoid mistakes is boring and not inspiring. But we inspire each other, hopefully to the delight of the audience, and would rather have a mistake than a boring ”perfect” performance.
That's why I'm happy to stick to my answer when the Friends asked me: ”Which musician do you look up to as a role model?”. Then as now, the answer is: ”Someone who dares to invest musically!”.