In May 2026, my composition student August Fogh Hauskov had his orchestral work Så du det grønne? premiered by Holbæk Symphony Orchestra at Musikhus Elværket in Holbæk.
August grew up in Holbæk and knew the orchestra from the inside before he began writing for it. He had played violin for many years, and at some point the wish to create his own music became stronger. That is a beautiful and very natural beginning for a composer: first you are inside music as a player, then you begin to ask what could happen if the sound came from you.
The SJF Bank Foundation article presents the project as August’s achievement, and that is exactly how it should be understood. It is his piece, his premiere, his meeting with the orchestra.
I include it here because this is one of the things I care most about in teaching composition: helping a young composer become ready for the moment when a musical idea has to leave the lesson room and stand in front of real musicians.
An orchestra is wonderfully unforgiving. It reveals whether notation is clear, whether proportions hold, whether the imagined sound can actually breathe. For a young composer, that meeting can change the sense of what composing is.