Per Nørgård (born 1932) studied with Vagn Holmboe in The Royal Academy of Music in Copenhagen, and later with Nadia Boulanger in Paris. He worked as a professor in The Royal Academy of Music in Århus until 1995, and has been working fulltime as a composer since. 

His earliest works followed the Nordic music tradition of Carl Nielsen, Sibelius and his teacher Vagn Holmboe, but moved towards the avant-garde in the sixties, and developed his own version of serialism, the “infinity series”. 

Nørgård’s music is – despite its complexity – relatively easily accessible, and he has composed several works for amateur performance groups, e.g. the oratorio Babel from 1966 and several choir works. 

Among Nørgård’s many awards are the Lili Boulanger Memorial Fund Award (1957), the Carl Nielsen Grant (1969 and 2001), Nordic Council Music Prize (1972 and 1974) and Léonie Sonning’s Music Prize (1996 as the first Danish composer to receive it).

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