Lil Lacy

Danish American Lil Lacy is a composer whose curiosity is at the center of her music. She works with the meeting of medias and genres, focusing on the connectivity within music. Creating without the limitations of the classical structures, Lacy is also a performer, a singer and experimental cellist. This unique perspective offers her music a malleability to space.

Lacy’s music is born in the meeting with performers, audiences, and space. From installation to orchestra, she creates tailor-made universes, claiming the right to be heard.

Lacy has composed for orchestra, choir, installations and electronics, and in collaboration with art films, theatre, visual arts and dance. Her curiosity allows her to move between worlds, bringing herself into each one, whilst absorbing a bit of them, each time.

A reflection on our time and culture, Lil Lacy’s music questions and inquires on who we were and where we are going, whilst dreaming of a better future. Her work deals with the big questions of her generation, human connectivity, the darkness of society, our culture and heritage, and nature in a context of climate change and a drastic need for a better future.

Her first orchestral work Aliento del Mar, written for accordionist Bjarke Mogensen and Gävle Symphony Orchestra, is inspired by the movement of the tide, the push and pull of large forces. The music, as does nature, constantly transforms, from something that can barely be heard, to something than can barely be stopped again (Arbetarbladet 2021). With her use of plastic bags, Lacy deepens the ocean sound, whilst highlighting the issue of plastic waste in our waters.  

Lil Lacy studied composition at Royal Academy of Music in Aarhus with Simon Steen-Andersen, Niels Rønsholdt and Juliana Hodkinson. She also studied at the music department of UC San Diego with Mark Dresser, Katharina Rosenberger, Wilfrido Terrazas and Marcos Balter.

In 2020 she received the Léonie Sonning Talent Prize.