Lars Petter Hagen studied composition at the Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo between 1995 and 2000. He also took lessons with Brian Ferneyhough, Salvatore Sciarrino, and Jonathan Harvey.

At the 2005 Donaueschinger Tage für Neue Musik, Hagen was noted for his piece Norwegische Archive. The title is representative of his interests: the historical weight of his work’s genealogy and, more generally, “the artist’s influence in the era of retromania.”¹ These themes are found in Archive Fever (2019), Tveitt Fragments (2006, from the name of Geirr Tveitt, a Norwegian pianist from the beginning of the twentieth century; remnants from his burnt scores form the basis of this piece), and even more explicitly in The Artist’s Despair Before the Grandeur of Ancient Ruins (2010). Quotation (and moving beyond it) is also central in Hagen’s work, as evidenced by Harmonium Repertoire (2016), which calls on various harmonium parts from orchestral pieces by Arnold Schoenberg, Gustav Mahler, Richard Strauss, Alban Berg, and Anton Bruckner.

These questions also inform Hagen’s work as a musical director. In 2003, he was artistic director of nyMusikk Society — the Norwegian section of the International Society of Contemporary Music — where he founded and managed the Happy Days Sound Festival until 2009. From 2011 to 2017, he was artistic director of Ultima Festival and occupied the same post for Nordic Music Days from 2009 to 2014. He was named project director in 2017 for the centennial of the Oslo Philharmonic. He then became director of development for the orchestra in 2020, and the same year took on the role of president of the Arts Council Norway. He was named director of the Bergen International Festival in May 2022. In each of these roles, Hagen has reflected on the dialogue with history and tradition that underpins his work. He presents programs that blend major contemporary music with new commissions and represent a broad variety of avant-garde techniques.

His pieces have been played at festivals such as Donaueschinger Festival, MaerzMusik, Eclat, and Gaudeamus, by ensembles such as Ensemble Modern, SWR Symphonieorchester, Klangforum Wien, Cikada, Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart, and Oslo Philharmonic.

He has taught at the Darmstadt summer courses and is also part of the pedagogical program at Forecast. Two monographic CDs were dedicated to him by the record labels Aurora and BIS.

Prizes and Awards

• Norwegian Grammy in the “Contemporary” category for Lament, 2013
• Norwegian Grammy in the “Composer of the Year” category, 2013
• Edvard Award for Passage – Silence and Light Triptych, 2004
• Arne Nordheim Composer Award, 2003

^{1. Rob Young, “A Cure for Archive Fever. Lars Petter Hagen, Composer and curator,” cited on Hagen’s website.↩}