My name is Jan Rohard. I was born in 1961. My instrument is the violin
I actually started playing the piano when I was 3-4 years old.
My mum was walking in the garden and heard “ALIBALIBI” being strummed. A well-known song at the time (that's how old I am). She thought it was my 3 years older brother, but it wasn't. There is music in the boy, they thought, and sent me to a piano teacher in Valby. They never managed to teach me to play the piano the right way, as I quickly invented my own system. Faster and easier, I thought. I became good enough to play at dance schools and ballet schools and the like, but my parents wisely thought it would be a good idea to switch to an instrument I didn't know how to play and learn it right from the start.
They bought a violin and I started with an old musician from the Royal Danish Orchestra. Kapel when I was 8 years old.
I entered the conservatory at the age of 17 and became one of Professor Endre Wolf's last students.
When I was in my final year (diploma class), there was an audition for the 3rd concertmaster position in the primary group in the Radio Symphony Orchestra. I participated almost as a joke, but to my surprise I was offered the position.
I started in December 1985 with a recording of Maskerade.
For the past 32 years, I have held the position of 2.3.4. concertmaster.
Today I'm what's called the 4th solo player, and even though I'm one of the old hands with thousands of concerts behind me, I don't actually feel like I've been here that long. I think playing in the orchestra has become more fun over the years.
On the side, I play with my parlour trio: Københavns Wienertrio. We've been playing together since we met in Tivoli's Promenade Orchestra under Ivan Leth almost 40 years ago.
I know I look angry when I sit in my seat in the orchestra.
Don't take it personally. I'm just concentrating. In reality, I'm enjoying it to the fullest.
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My name is Paul Frederiksen, I'm 2nd bass in the Concert Choir
I was born in 1962 in Canada, but grew up in Copenhagen, where I sang in the Copenhagen Boys' Choir from 3rd grade. I graduated from Sankt Annæ Gymnasium and then studied musicology (and later film and media studies) at the University of Copenhagen. In 1987 I was admitted to the Royal Danish Academy of Music. In 1991, I graduated as a music teacher with singing and singing pedagogy as my main subject and ear training pedagogy as an elective subject. In 1993, I graduated with a diploma in singing and singing pedagogy.
Since then I've made a living as a singer, mainly as a choir singer. I became a permanent member of Radiokoret (the former Choir 74) in 1997 - then as first bass - but left it again when I became a permanent member of The Danish National Opera Choir in 2001. Since 2010, I've been a freelance choir singer and fortunately I've been in great demand as an assistant at the Danish National Opera, the Royal Theatre, Malmö Opera and Opera Hedeland. I've also had a number of character roles at Det Ny Teater, Undergrunden and Operaen i Midten, among others.
After a couple of years as a yearly substitute and assistant in the DR Koncerkoret, I became a permanent employee again in 2014.
In recent years, I have started studying choral conducting. I work mainly with rehearsals, i.e. preparing choirs for stage productions, for example. I am a regular chorus master with the amateur opera company Opera Nordsjælland, which does full-scale productions with symphony orchestra. Most recently, we did Cavalleria Rusticana in autumn 2017.
I am also the leader (if such a thing can be led) of Copenhagen Early Music Group, an ensemble for medieval and renaissance music, mainly church music