Ib Nørholm is a Danish

Denmark

Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...

 composer

Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

 and organist

Organist

An organist is a musician who plays any type of organ. An organist may play solo organ works, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers or instrumental soloists...

.

Nørholm studied with Vagn Holmboe

Vagn Holmboe

Vagn Gylding Holmboe was a Danish composer and teacher who wrote largely in a neo-classical style.-Life:At the age of 16, Holmboe began formal music training at the Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen on the recommendation of Carl Nielsen. He studied under Knud Jeppesen and Finn Høffding...

 at the Royal Danish Academy of Music, where he later taught (from 1973), becoming a professor in 1981. Among the honours Nørholm has received are the Gaudeamus International Composers Award

Gaudeamus International Composers Award

The Gaudeamus International Composers Award is a European award issued by the Music Center the Netherlands...

 in 1964, the Carl Nielsen Prize in 1971 and a knighthood in 1981.

Initially, Nørholm's music was very much in the tradition of Carl Nielsen

Carl Nielsen

Carl August Nielsen , , widely recognised as Denmark's greatest composer, was also a conductor and a violinist. Brought up by poor but musically talented parents on the island of Funen, he demonstrated his musical abilities at an early age...

, as exemplified by his first symphony

Symphony

A symphony is an extended musical composition in Western classical music, scored almost always for orchestra. A symphony usually contains at least one movement or episode composed according to the sonata principle...

 (1956-8). In the 1960s, however, Nørholm began to explore the possibilities of serialism

Serialism

In music, serialism is a method or technique of composition that uses a series of values to manipulate different musical elements. Serialism began primarily with Arnold Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique, though his contemporaries were also working to establish serialism as one example of...

 and graphic scores, having been deeply impressed by his experineces of the music of Karlheinz Stockhausen

Karlheinz Stockhausen

Karlheinz Stockhausen was a German composer, widely acknowledged by critics as one of the most important but also controversial composers of the 20th and early 21st centuries. Another critic calls him "one of the great visionaries of 20th-century music"...

, Pierre Boulez

Pierre Boulez

Pierre Boulez is a French composer of contemporary classical music, a pianist, and a conductor.-Early years:Boulez was born in Montbrison, Loire, France. As a child he began piano lessons and demonstrated aptitude in both music and mathematics...

, and others at the ISCM in Cologne

Cologne

Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...

.
Later still his music took on a more economical approach, often characterised by the term 'new simplicity'.

Compositions by Nørholm include the opera

Opera

Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

 The Young Park (1969–70), Symphony No. 3 (1973), sonatas for accordion

Accordion

The accordion is a box-shaped musical instrument of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone family, sometimes referred to as a squeezebox. A person who plays the accordion is called an accordionist....

 (1967) and guitar

Classical guitar

The classical guitar is a 6-stringed plucked string instrument from the family of instruments called chordophones...

 (1976), Idylles d'Apocalypse for organ

Organ (music)

The organ , is a keyboard instrument of one or more divisions, each played with its own keyboard operated either with the hands or with the feet. The organ is a relatively old musical instrument in the Western musical tradition, dating from the time of Ctesibius of Alexandria who is credited with...

 and orchestra

Orchestra

An orchestra is a sizable instrumental ensemble that contains sections of string, brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments. The term orchestra derives from the Greek ορχήστρα, the name for the area in front of an ancient Greek stage reserved for the Greek chorus...

 (1980), Symphony No. 5 'The Elements' (1980), Immanence for solo flute

Flute

The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening...

 (1983), Aspects of Sand and Simplicity for string orchestra (1987), a symphonic fantasy Hearing Andersen (1987), and the choral

Choir

A choir, chorale or chorus is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform.A body of singers who perform together as a group is called a choir or chorus...

 work Sjaelfuld Sommer (1997). The opera Invitation til Skafottet ("Invitation to a Beheading") (1965) was commissioned by the Danish Broadcasting Corporation. In all Nørholm has written twelve symphonies. His second symphony, Isola Bella, was commissioned by the Danish National Symphony Orchestra

Danish National Symphony Orchestra

The Danish National Symphony Orchestra , is a Danish orchestra based in Copenhagen. The DNSO is the principal orchestra of DR...

, whilt his fourth symphony is subtitled Moderskabelsen ("Mother Creation"). The première of his twelfth symphony, Virkeligheder on texts by Thorkild Bjørnvig, Lene Henningsen and Inger Christensen, takes place in Odense on April 28, 2011.

In addition to his activities as a composer, Nørholm is a prolific music critic and choral conductor.

Orchestral music

• Twelve symphonies (1956–58, 1968–71, 1973, 1978–79, 1980–81, 1981, 1982, 1990, 1990, 1998, 2008, 2009)
• Concerto for violin and orchestra (1974)
• Concerto for cello and orchestra (1989)

Chamber music

• Mosaic: Recitative Fragments, op. 15 (1959) for flute, violin, viola and cello
• Varianter, op. 19 (1959) for violin and piano
• Præludium til min vintermorgen (Prelude to my Winter Morning), op. 52 (1971) for flute, violin, viola, cello and piano
• Kontrast-Kontinuum, op. 70 (1977) for flute quartet
• Så at sige (So to Say), op. 74 (1978) for flute and percussion
• Essai prismatique, op. 77 (1979) for violin, cello and piano
• Before Silence, op. 83 (1980) for flute trio
• Den ortodokse drøm (The Orthodox Dream), op. 92 (1984) for flute, cello and harpsichord
• Medusa's Shadow, op. 105 (1987) for flute, guitar, viola and cello
• Saxophone Quartet (1992)
• Nu og Da (2000–01) for voices and string quartet
• Jubilate Deo in Primavere (2005) for flute, saxophone and percussion

Solo instrumental music

• Sonata No. 1, op. 69 (1976) for guitar
• Turbulens-Laminar, op. 93 (1984) for piano
• Sonata No. 2, op. 110 (1989) for guitar
• A Song of Breath and Wings (2002) for clarinet