Michael Bojesen


Michael Bojesen is a Danish conductor, composer, choirmaster and arranger. He is director of Malmö Opera on 1 January 2017. He won the Danish annual prize for choral composition in 1998.

Biography

Bojesen was born in Copenhagen. He graduated from the Royal Danish Academy of Music in 1984. From 1984 to 2001 he taught at the Sankt Annæ Gymnasium, a secondary school in Copenhagen specialising in singing, where he was choirmaster from 1991 to 2001. From 1989 to 2006 he was the conductor of the Camerata chamber choir, and from 2001 to 2010 chief conductor of the DR Girls' Choir, after which he became honorary conductor. He took over the direction of the Copenhagen Opera Festival in September 2012. He has also been a docent at the Academy of Music.
He is known as a versatile conductor, working with the DR Big Band in addition to classical ensembles.

Works

He has also arranged works for the Danish Concert Choir, the Danish National Chamber Orchestra and the Danish National Symphony Orchestra, among others.

Awards

Bojesen won the Danish annual prize for choral composition in 1998. In 1999 a recording of Messiah in which he participated won the Danish Grammy for the year's best Danish recording, and choirs under his direction have three times been honoured with first prizes: Camerata at Arezzo in 1992 and 2002, and the DR Girls' Choir as "Choir of the World 2002 Kathaumiwx". In 2011 The Jazz Ballad Song Book, a recording by the DR Big Band in which he conducted the Danish National Chamber Orchestra was nominated for four Grammy Awards in jazz categories.