Palle Mikkelborg

Palle Mikkelborg - honorary Professor 2013-2018

Trumpeter, composer, and orchestra leader Palle Mikkelborg occupies a very special position on the Danish jazz scene. His importance to Danish and Scandinavian music has been and still is enormous, and his collaboration with a large number of international stars has made his music known far beyond the country’s borders.

Mikkelborg is a musician and composer with great human and artistic range. His sources of inspiration include not only big jazz names but also classical composers such as Ravel, Messiaen, and Charles Ives. His works often involve choirs, strings, and non-traditional ensembles.

Palle Mikkelborg is self-taught but has achieved more than most musicians. He has been the leader of DR’s Radiojazzgruppe and has participated in a number of ground-breaking groups such as Entrance and Alpha Centauri. He has played with top Danish and international musicians such as Niels Henning Ørsted Pedersen, Gil Evans, Dexter Gordon and many others. Mikkelborg wrote his compositional masterwork “Aura” for Miles Davis when Davis received the Sonning prize in 1984. Subsequently, they recorded the work together, the record received two American Grammys, and the work has since been included in the Danish cultural canon.

Mikkelborg is characterized by, among other things, his very personal trumpet playing, his use of electronics in his playing and his many cross over projects. And not least his insistence on the spiritual dimension not only in music, but in life.

Mikkelborg was appointed honorary Professor in connection with the AWARENESS concert in Musikhuset Aarhus on 31 August 2013, where Mikkelborg played together with top musicians from Denmark, Iran, Mali and Syria – and with a huge selection of academy students in all musical genres.

(Photo: Poul Nyholm)