Lars Ulrik Mortensen


Lars Ulrik Mortensen is a Danish harpsichordist and conductor largely in Baroque solo and chamber music and Early music repertory. He was a professor in Munich in 1996-99 and has since then been artistic director of Concerto Copenhagen. He received the Léonie Sonning Music Prize in 2007.

Early life and education

Lars Ulrik Mortensen was born in 1955. His father was the conductor Bent Mortensen. He studied with Karen Englund and Jesper Bøje Christensen at The Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen and with Trevor Pinnock in London.

Career

He has a career as a soloist and chamber musician in Europe, North and South America and Japan. From 1988 to 1990 he was harpsichordist in London Baroque, and from 1990 to 1993 he was a member of Collegium Musicum 90. He appears regularly with singer Emma Kirkby, violinist John Holloway and cellist and gambist Jaap ter Linden. He has recorded for Archiv Produktion, harmonia mundi, Kontrapunkt and da capo and his recording of Bach's Goldberg Variations won him a Diapason d'Or. He is the artistic director of Concerto Copenhagen, and appears regularly directing opera at the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen. He is also the artistic director of the European Union Baroque Orchestra since 2004.
He was professor of harpsichord and performance practice at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Munich from 1996 to 1999. In 2007 he was awarded the Léonie Sonning Music Prize, Denmark's premier music award.

Recordings