Artist Talk: Wayne Siegel (US/DK)

Learn More About the Composer and the Music

Before the concert "Swarms & Solos", we meet with electronic composer Wayne Siegel  to learn more about his music and life as a composer. He will be in conversation with journalist and Jazz Festival administrative director Marie Norman Nyeng. Siegel is a pioneer in both electronic and classical music with an exciting career behind him. At Aarhus Jazz Festival 2025, he will perform his new work "Swarms and Solos", which combines multi-channel generative music with live improvisation. The concert unfolds over a fixed composed framework with room for free improvisation. Using specially developed software, Wayne Siegel controls the sounds and their placement in space by moving his hands in front of a computer camera. Siegel's generative sound installation Sky Mechanics creates a sonic backdrop with which the three soloists interact.

The artist talk at 3 pm is free and lasts approx. 30 minutes, while the concert "Swarms & Solos" at 4 pm requires admission. Both events will take place at Kunsthal Aarhus.

Wayne Siegel is originally from California, where he was inspired by American folk music, blues, and avant-garde rock. He studied composition at University of California, Santa Barbara in the early 1970s. In 1974, he moved to Denmark to study composition with Per Nørgård. He settled in Denmark where he has worked as a composer, performer, researcher, curator, promoter, and teacher. In 1986, he became the director of the Danish National Center for Electronic Music, DIEM. From 2003 to 2017, Siegel worked as a professor of electronic music at the Royal Academy of Music in Aarhus. In 2013, he received a lifetime artist grant from the Danish Ministry of Culture for his outstanding artistic achievements, and in 2017 he was appointed honorary professor at the Royal Academy of Music in Aarhus.

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This event is part of the "New Horizons" concert series.

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