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| Photo: Leon Chia |
HE CARED ABOUT
CLASSICAL MUSIC IN SINGAPORE:
IN MEMORY OF HANS SORENSEN
We are shocked and saddened by the sudden passing of Hans Sørensen, former Head of Artistic Planning of the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, in Norway sometime in late Janaury 2026. From 2019 to September 2025, he transformed the face of classical music in Singapore by revitalising the programming at Singapore’s national orchestra. Even through the difficult years of the Covid pandemic, he worked closely with Music Director Hans Graf to craft the orchestra’s concert seasons which were a simply breath of fresh air.
Like many who have been following the orchestra over the years, one could not help but feel a sense of sameness creeping into the music-making during the last years of Lan Shui’s tenure. The same symphonies and concertos were being rehashed, albeit with increasingly starry guest performers, but stasis and staleness were becoming more apparent. Shui retired in January 2019 after an eventful and storied 22-year tenure, and a worldwide search netted the highly experienced Danish musician/producer/programmer Hans Sørensen, who joined later in the year. A gentle giant, whose quiet presence at SSO concerts belied his major influence, was soon to make sweeping changes to how we enjoy our music in Singapore.
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| Hans enjoyed real food. |
I was fortunate to catch up with Hans in his final week in Singapore and we had a feast. I wanted to write an article about how he landed the SSO job, his inspirations and what influenced his repertoire choices and what he looked forward to leaving Singapore.
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| Hans' Danish influences, including Langgaard, Henning-Jensen and Ole Schmidt. |
He was born to a musical family in the south of Denmark. The most famous Danish composer after Carl Nielsen, the radical and controversial Rued Langgaard (1893-1952), performed the organ at his parents’ wedding. A violinist from his childhood, he performed regularly at informal events, festivals as well as concerts.
Who was his first employer? “McDonald’s!” he said without irony. While he was flipping burgers in Copenhagen, he was studying musical composition with Danish actor and film composer Lars Henning-Jensen (born 1943). He also made regular trips to the Czech Republic where he learnt the ropes of film music production in the prolific industry there. He also studied conducting with the great Danish conductor Ole Schmidt, famous for his Nielsen cycle with the London Symphony Orchestra.
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| One film music disc which Hans helped produce. |
In those days, one did not need to go conservatory or university for a solid musical education and a career in the classical music industry. Experience and self-learning was key, and Hans had a lot of that. He worked in all fields, including retail (one of the bigger record stores in Copenhagen), recording (a stint at Universal Music’s headquarters in Berlin), A&R (Artists and Repertoire), and most importantly artistic planning and programming at the Danish National Orchestra and Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra in Sweden. You will see his fingerprints in a variety of recordings and repertoire issued on multiple labels. There was no orchestra or artist worth their salt he was not familiar with.
It was with decades of experience that brought him to Singapore. Film music was a particular passion of his, and it is said that he had amassed the biggest collection of film scores and recordings in Europe, and part of it was sequestered in his apartment at Hillview Avenue. This would explain SSO’s landmark recording of the Suite adapted from Bernard Herrmann’s opera Wuthering Heights and Echoes for string orchestra (issued on Chandos). Both were reworked by Hans from their original sources. Freshly minted recordings of violin concertos by Robert Russell Bennett and Vernon Duke (Vladimir Dukelsky) from Chloe Hanslip and SSO under Andrew Litton’s direction were also issued on Chandos.
His musicological research also led to the modern revival of the Requiem Mass by Polish composer Józef Kozłowski (1757-1831), a contemporary of Mozart’s who was exiled in Tsarist Russia, which was premiered in Singapore and recorded on Pentatone. Another neglected composer was the Dane Paul von Klenau (1883-1946), whose Eighth Symphony was given the world premiere by SSO, and recorded along with his twelve-tone Violin and Piano Concertos, on the Da Capo label. His love of jazz was manifested with SSO's first ever jazz recording A Tribute to Bill Evans fronted by the Thomas Clausen Trio. SSO was certainly breaking new ground on many fronts.
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| Chloe Chua's debut recording |
I can still clearly remember how Hans was excited about showing me the covers of these discs, and lauding the highest levels of playing, like a giddy schoolboy in love. He saw the future star in Chloe and helped make that happen. The partnership he fostered between Chloe with SSO music director Hans Graf has been likened to the tandem Anne-Sophie Mutter and Herbert von Karajan, but with a Singaporean twist.
Another young Singaporean artist to be promoted is the pianist Toby Tan, brought to Hans’ attention after he won first 1st prize at the Aarhus International Piano Competition. He was presented at the 2024 President’s Young Performers Concert where he performed Rachmaninov’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini. He and Adrian Tang have been programmed to perform Mozart and Salieri’s concertos at Hans Graf’s farewell concerts. The increasing number of Singaporean composers featuring on SSO subscription concerts was also no accident.
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| Joyce Koh's Earth was programmed alongside Gustav Holst's The Planets. Wished Hans was there to witness that. |
About leaving the SSO, Hans was one never to hang around too long at a single place. "I have worked longer at the SSO than any other post of mine in the past," he quipped. He was up for new challenges, and the Trondheim Symphony was his next assignment. "That will be my final job," he added with a chilling prescience.
Hans Sørensen truly cared about classical music in Singapore, and put his expertise and experience whole-heartedly in service of the SSO and Singapore’s music scene. We have all been richer for it, and after all our pre- and post-concert conversations, all I can say is, “Thank you Hans, and we will sorely miss you.”
Also read this excellent interview with Canadian writer-reviewer Robert Markow:
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