About the
Artistic Director and Chief Executive
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Lars Petter Hagen began his tenure as Artistic Director and Chief Executive 1 May 2022.
Lars Petter Hagen (born 1975) has held leading positions in Norwegian arts institutions since 2003, while at the same time pursuing an international career as a composer, curator and mentor. His most recent roles are Chair of Arts Council Norway and Head of Development at the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra.
Hagen grew up in Ski and lives in Oslo, Norway. He studied composition at the Norwegian Academy of Music in the period 1995–2000, where he studied with Rolf Wallin, Asbjørn Schaathun and others. He has also studied with Han Brian Ferneyhough, Salvatore Sciarrino, Jonathan Harvey, Olav Anton Thommessen, Lasse Thoresen and others.
His international breakthrough as a composer came at Donaueschinger Tage für Neue Musik in 2005 with the commissioned work Norske arkiver, given its world premiere performance by Hilversum Radio Chamber Orchestra led by Peter Eötvös. His list of works includes both instrumental and vocal music, sound installations, electronic works and work for film and theatre. He has been commissioned to create works by leading orchestras such as Donaueschinger Musiktage, Ensemble Modern, Klangforum Wien, Darmstadt Summer Course, Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart, Collegium Novum Zürich, Radio France, Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, Cikada and the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra. He received the Arne Nordheim’s Composer’s Prize 2003 and the Edvard prize for his composition Passage – Silence and Light Triptych in 2004. In 2013 he won a Norwegian Grammy in the category ‘Composer of the Year’ for a recording with the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, and his work Lament for choir, electronics and percussion performed by The Norwegian Soloist’s Choir and Hans Kristian Kjos Sørensen won the category ‘Contemporary’. Hagen has taught at Darmstadt Summer Course for several years and has participated in the interdisciplinary and international mentoring project Forecast.
Alongside his work as a composer and a teacher, Hagen has held many positions as a curator and a leader in the arts field. He became the artistic director of the Ny Musikk Society in 2003 and, while there, founded and managed the Happy Days Sound Festival until 2009. After being the acting director of the Ultima Oslo Contemporary Music Festival for two years, he was in 2011 named director, a position he held until 2017. He was the artistic director of the Nordic Music Days in 2009 and 2014. In 2017 Hagen became a project manager for the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra’s 100th anniversary, celebrated in the 2019/2020 season. In 2020 he took up a position as Head of Development at the Oslo Philharmonic, and in that same year became Chair of Arts Council Norway.
Hagen is also an active writer, mentor and lecturer.
