A Knife to Reality

I was supposed to meet the Danish composer Niels Rønsholdt at the SPOR Festival in Aarhus. There, his recent music theater piece “Gaze for Gaze” received a new production, performed by Denmark’s SCENATET ensemble, with whom Rønsholdt has worked closely for more than a decade. But events got in the way. I have cystic fibrosis, and at short notice I needed to go to the hospital for two weeks of intravenous antibiotic treatment—meaning that I would miss SPOR and my meeting with Rønsholdt. Instead, we arranged to talk via Skype, me at home the day before I became an in-patient and two days before SPOR began. Nevertheless, we did manage to talk about “Gaze for Gaze,” Rønsholdt’s “method” approach to composition, his interest in theatrical elements, and how to turn yourself into a chanson composer. At the center of Rønsholdt’s musical aesthetic is the human body, and particularly the breath. Since my own lungs had thwarted our planned meeting, I had to ask him about this too.