I was born in 1947 in Copenhagen but live since my early childhood in Aarhus where I studied musicology at the university and subsequently worked as a highscool music teacher. Upon supplying university courses in computer science I have been working as a programmer since 1989. Since I started studying music I have enjoyed - and still enjoy - instructing the same good old recorder consort. We are not world stars but we have fun.
I have been composing - although not very much - since my youth using different techniques and styles of composition. I have used kinds of serial technique in a small quartet for recorders, Kleines Quartett (published by B�renreiter Verlag, Kassel), in another quartet for woodwinds (published on The Werner Icking Music Archive as 3 or 5 of 10 for 4) and in a suite for choir and instruments with texts from Christian Morgenstern's Galgenlieder (published by Wilhelm Hansen, Copenhagen). Serially composed is also �a ira?, a four part choir piece with lyrics by Erich Fried to the memory of Werner Icking.
In other vocal compositions found in this archive I have - inspired by the danish composer of symphonies and a huge number of danish songs, Carl Nielsen - been trying to expand a traditional functional harmony. That applies to my Solstice Songs for choir, soloist and piano and to a collection of songs with lyrics written in a Danish peasant dialect from the island Salling by the danish early 20'th century poet Jeppe Aakj�r. Important themes of many of his poems have like the present ones are the daily life as well as the cultural and political emancipation of the danish rural proletariat in the beginning of our century. Many of these songs can be found - many of them composed by Carl Nielsen - in the H�jskolesangbog, songbook for the folk high school. They are still among the favorite songs when Danes meet and sing from the H�jskolesangbog. My Aakj�r songs are to be seen in this tradition.
Years ago I replaced notesheets and pencils with sheet note editing software. I use the MusiXTeX preprocessors M-Tx and PMX for some typesettings and the shareware editor MUP for others.
Christian Mondrup, Computer Programmer
Scandiatransplant, Skejby Hospital, University Hospital of Aarhus
Brendstrupgaardsvej, DK 8200 Aarhus N, Denmark