2027
New symphony in the making. A site specific, 60 min. piece for symphony orchestra, chamber orchestra and choir commissioned by Rued Langgaard Festival, Danish Philharmonic Orchestra, Esbjerg Ensemble and grammy winning vocal ensemble Ars Nova.
World premiere in September 2027 at Rued Langgaard festival where I will be festival composer as well.
2026
New violin concerto in the making commissioned by the Danish National Symphony orchestra and violinist Christina Åstrand. Set to premiere in 2027 with conductor Barbara Hannigan
2026
New piece for solo voices and various small baroque ensembles in the making. Commissioned by award winning baroque ensemble Concerto Copenhagen and set to premiere as an album in late 2027 including various concerts throughout the next two years.
Consisting of 9 different movements each representing a different singer and ensemble. The soloists span 70 yeas in age and thus representing three very different stages of life: childhood, adulthood and old age – exploring a timbral examination of life lived and the tightly woven webs connecting us all.
2025
“Unearthed” is a “in the making” piece for string quartet, commissioned by Bloom festival and Novo Quartet. There will be two work-in-progress premieres in May and November 2025 and the final world premiere in May 2026.
The piece is a part of my three year Artist in Residency at Bloom festival. This time around I get to study Earth System Science: ESS assumes a holistic view of the dynamic interaction between the Earth’s spheres and their many subsystems.
2024
New trombone concerto commissioned by the Royal Danish Orchestra, Aarhus Symphony orchestra and trombone player Jesper Busk Sørensen
2024
“FOOD” for SSATTB commissioned by grammy winning vocal ensemble Theatre of Voices and conductor Paul Hillier. Text by Gertrude Stein
2024
MICROBES is a set of four solo string pieces commissioned by Bloom Festival as part of a three year Artist in Residency. The solo pieces are performed and dedicated to the players in the award winning string quartet Novo Quartet.
The project is merging contemporary classical music with natural science and explores the phenomenon of memory from the perspectives of three different scientific disciplines: hologenomics (2024), geoscience (2025/2026) and astrophysics (2027).
“As above, So below” for solo violin
“PRISM” for solo violin
“Glazed Glitter” for solo viola
“Cream Cut” for solo cello
2024
“Kun stemmen bliver tilbage” (only the voice remains) is a chamber opera by artist collective Motherboard.
Text by Iranien poet Forugh Farrokhzad and Motherboard.
instrumentation/performers: solo soprano, solo countertenor, male choir, percussion, accordion and two dancers.
Link to website (inkl. programme notes and film): http://motherboard.works/works/kun-stemmen-bliver-tilbage/
2023
“Leaning Tree” is a 60 min. symphony orchestra piece written for contemporary dance. Commissioned by Copenhagen Philharmonics and Danish Dance Theatre in collaboration with choreographer Fernando Melo.
“Leaning Tree” explores and challenges the many individual colors in an orchestra, but most importantly it is a tribute to the many different musicians who bring this giant body of sound to life.
The orchestra is divided into 8 different groups and are placed in a surround sound setting. The audience is given the opportunity to experience the energy and physicality of mastering an instrument up close. The many similarities between dancer and performer – how playing an instrument is as neatly choreographed as the moving bodies on stage. Trying to bridge the two disciplines: music and dance.
The music moves between a collective unity of the performers and individual identities in sound and timbre. Leaning Tree is written as a sort of ecosystem of materials that are carried from one chamber group to another – like tiny blood vessels transporting and moving blood around. Ultimately ending at the same place, the source of origin: the heart.
2023
“Bell Jar” for symphony orchestra and three percussion commissioned by Odense Symphony orchestra.
The world is full of noise – a fundamental frequency, not unlike the inert presence and constant hum of transmission towers. A lack of sensitivity and of nuances, that often lose to noise and loud voices. Bell Jar paints a miniscule sonic portrait of this lack of receptivity – a hermetically sealed glass bell that distorts, disturbs and intensifies its surroundings, where everything from timbre to dynamics and tonality to instrumentation is directly affected by this aloof tingle. Occasionally, the glass breaks, revealing a softer, more fragile and sensible music – a gentle reminder that if we stop and listen, another set of nuances is offered to us – the voices that only get to have their say when noise dissipates, and when we insist on silence.
2023
“TEMPER” is scored for 9 prepared woodwinds and commissioned by Random International and Nxt Museum in Amsterdam. Performed by Trio Amerise and recorded/mix by Preben Ivan.
For this iteration of the light installation Living Room, Nxt Museum and Random International invited Danish composer, Signe Lykke, to create a captivating musical composition to accompany the installation.
Temper is a composition scored for a unique ensemble, comprising three bass clarinets, three contrabassoons, an alto flute, two flutes, and two Eb clarinets. The piece explores the physicality inherent to wind instruments; in an ingenious approach, the composer uses cloth and cork to mute the low-pitched woodwinds, reshaping their traditional sonic characteristics. Beyond a softening effect, the chosen technique alters pitch, embouchure and the duration of sounds, resulting in a unique and atmospheric auditory experience.
In this technology-infused installation, the sense of a living, breathing presence engulfs you as you enter the space – a feeling that’s further enhanced by the craftsmanship of the composition. “I’ve continuously been captivated by the profound physicality inherent in musical instruments,” Lykke explains. “…the diverse nuances in a breath that allow for both protracted, sustained notes and brief, explosive bursts of sound; the intricate dance of muscle memory guiding precision in movement, the delicate interplay of limbs, and the lasting impact of sudden, emotive physical gestures.
2022
Motherboard is a community, a laboratory which radically rethinks opera.
Motherboard is a group of artists, who each represent a field within the crossartistic core disciplines of opera.
Motherboard is opera for the 21st century.
Motherboard is: Composer Signe Lykke, soprano & performer Katinka Fogh Vindelev, choreographer Tim Matiakis, filmdirectors Cille Hannibal & Frigge Fri and scenographer Karin Gille.
Read more at https://motherboard.works/
Photo by C Echeverri
2022
“CRUX” for solo violin and string orchestra commissioned by Ensemble Sonore, Wegelius Kammarstråkar, Lilla Akademien and DUEN
This piece explores and challenges the many individual colors in an orchestra, the ingrained hierarchy and conventional chain of command. But most importantly it is a tribute to the many different musicians who bring this giant body of sound to life.
The music moves between a collective unity of the performers and individual identities in sounds, timbres and extended techniques.
The orchestra is placed in four different groups on stage.
In each “ Heart chamber” the orchestra is united in an ambient soft sound scape, a single breathing body of textures and sound. Thus gradually the chambers slowly become more fragmented but the tutti feeling prevails.
In between the four “chambers” each individual group is set in motion as the driving force behind the music. The music is written as a sort of ecosystem of materials that are carried from one group/soloist to another – like tiny blood vessels transporting and moving blood around. Ultimately ending at the same place, the source of origin: the heart.
A web of nerve tissue runs through the heart, conducting the complex signals that govern contraction and relaxation. These signals are transformed into four different chorales called “connective tissue release 1-4”.
The ever-constant presence of the solo violin, whether in solo material, tutti playing or simply conducting, is the verycenter of this piece: the heart. The heart pumps blood through the network of arteries and veins called the cardiovascular system or in this case, the orchestra.
2022
“UHR” for mezzo soprano and chamber ensemble, commissioned by singer Kirsten Voss Petersen and Ensemble Edge. World premiere at Aarhus Musikhus, grand stage June 2022
2022
“SVOVL” is written for solo organ and voice and commissioned by organ player Anne Agerskov. As a part of five symphonic poems for organ inspired by Hans Christian Anderses’s fairytales. “Svovl” is written for the fairytale “Den lille pige med svovlstikkerne”. World premiere on the 22nd of November 2022 in Aarhus Cathedral
2022
“DØDEVANDE” for girls choir, solo soprano (child) and solo alto (elderly woman) premiered in Cisternerne (an underground water reservoir) in September 2022. Commissioned by the music festival Frederiksberg Festspil
2021
Nordkraft has been transformed into an opera, and it takes completely new paths to capture the captivating atmosphere and the intense emotional life in Jakob Ejersbo’s classic novel.
Collected reviews of Nordkraft
2021
“I shall feed my eyes” for SSAATTBB commissioned by Ars Nova and conductor Paul Hillier
Review by Seismograf
2021
“Hele min eksistens var som et glas mælk mellem mine hænder” is a chamber opera commissioned by artist collective Motherboard. Premiered at the National Gallery of Denmark in collaboration with film festival CPH:DOX as a long durational live performance and a set of 5 films.
Instrumentation: solo soprano and percussion
Text by Iranian poet Forugh Farrokhzad.
2019
Body Textures for string orchestra – EP released on Dacapo Records
The textural work Body Textures by Signe Lykke is a beautiful sonic journey into the human body’s different cells. Cross-sectional images of cell types such as fat, protein and connective tissue form the basis of this orchestral work, and have served as an inspirational source for the different texture areas and movements.
Morten Ryelund conducts the Danish Youth Ensemble
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgBJhhYKgcM
2019
“En verden set fra oven” for baroque string quintet, lirone and Theorbo commissioned by award winning Concerto Copenhagen.
World premiere at the Royal Danish Librarys’ concert hall in November 2019
2018
“Panic day” (60 min.) for string quartet and dance. Commissioned by Uppercut Dance theatre and performed by string quartet Halvcirkel.
The piece was Reumert nominated
2018
VIIRS (Visible Infrared Infrared Radiometer Suite) is a three movement symphony for electric guitar, drum set, percussion, three voices and electronics. The piece investigates the matter of light pollution.
Composed and performed at Spot Festival 2018 by Signe Lykke, Lasse Ziegler and Anders Bach.
2018
“Den nat vi faldt”, a danish documentary by film maker Cille Hannibal. Score by Signe Lykke.
World premiere at CPH:DOX in March 2018
2018
“(To) cushion the blow” for SSAATTBB commissioned by Det Unge Vokalensemble. World premiere at the Round Tower in Copenhagen, December 2018
2018
“I REMEMBER – four water sketches for woodwind trio” is commissioned by Trio Amerise. The piece explores childhood memories linked to water.
2017
PNEUMATICKS, audio-visual work, 55 minutes
PNEUMATICKS is a cinematic symphonic work about the source and unification of body and soul. In northern Uganda, at the source of the Nile, lives Leotissa Ayelango. She makes pots from two types of soil, that exist on each side of her village, Nyaravur. Blending the soil with the water from the river, shaping it with small fragments of old pots and creating new ones. Her work happens in balance between earth, air, water and fire.
We follow her in real time, with the breath’s inhale, exhale and pauses like symphonic markers – on a cyclical journey, into the creation of a soul, a lung of air that contains a life. Her task is infinite. She unifies the elements. She creates constantly while she lives. With arduous effort and perfect ambition, she moves us around and shapes the world, like the source of life itself.
Film: Day-for-night recordings = moonlight. Long shots follow 4 phases of the creation of a pot: Balanced soil walks the earth. Fertile earth, digs the soil. Fired earth gives birth. Hand polished dirt is mortal coil.
Music: Through-composed symphonic work in 4 movements for two cellos, tree singers and one bass clarinet, with individual elements of improvisation. The work is acoustic throughout, but also contains electronically manipulated sounds and effects. The work is a result of close collaboration among the composers and visual artists.
Composition by Lil Lacy and Signe Lykke
Film by Ulrik Heltoft & Ann Sophie von Bülow
Musicians
Katinka Fogh Vindelev – soprano
Laura Mayer – alto
Simon Rønne Rischel – baritone
Morten Lohmann Sønderskov Jensen – bass clarinet
Soma Allpass – cello
Lil Lacy – cello
Sound by Bjørn Gjessing
Live performances
CLICK-festival, Helsingør / May 13th and 22nd 2017
Maltfabrikken, Ebeltoft / June 29th 2017
Musikhuset, Århus / October 29th 2017
Installation
Maltfabrikken, Ebeltoft / June – August 2017
2016
“Wetlands” (20 min.) for SSAATTBB commissioned and performed by Det Unge Vokalensemble.
Wetlands creates a tonal portrait of the uncertainty of the tide. It is inspired by the Wadden Sea’s eternal shift between the large contrasts; from the complete absence of water to storm and tide.
The idea is to challenge the traditional way of writing for a choir, and rather lower the voice as an instrument where elements such as phonetical text, whisteling and polythrytmic accompaniment is a part of the soundscape.
Futhermore, the music is written with a particular setup in mind where the choir encloses the audience in a circle and where the conductor in the eye of the storm, enclosed by both choir and audience. This way the listener will get a unique sense of being surrounded by water from all sides, and it will work as a sort of surroundsound.
Read a full interview in Danish with Signe on Wetlands here
2014
“Blue season revisited” for solo violin. Performed by Christina Åstrand at Wilhelm Hansens classical stage during Distortion 2014.
Listen to the piece and an interview with Signe on P2 here