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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 an 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 that 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 University of California San Diego with professor Mark Dresser, Katharina Rosenberger, Wilfrido Terrazas and Marcos Balter. In 2020 she received the Léonie Sonning Talent Prize.
Lacy composed, arranged and recorded music for different concerts and performances, a.o., the chamber opera One world above, another below, 45’ (2019), the site-specific choir concert; Concert for a Space and Time, 60' (2019), the dance performance For Ever Four Seasons, 70' (2019) and the staged choir piece CRAWL CRAWL CRAWL, 60’ (2022), in collaboration with scenographer and director Jon R. Skulberg and Convoi Exceptionnel and the multi-channel piece you’re somehow connected, 80’ (2020) that was performed at the official gala opening of Aarhus Festuge in 2021, with visual scenography by Vertigo.
Lacy is a member of the bands Frk. Jacobsen and Valby Vokalgruppe, as a vocalist, keyboard player and experimental cellist. She performed and has had her music performed in Europe, America, Australia and Japan, and released several critically acclaimed and award-winning albums with different ensembles.
Lacy is active and entrepreneurial in the music environment, amongst other things, initiating and facilitating the Composer Collective, and as a board member of Danish Composers’ Society (2023- 2025).
Collaborative creative processes and long-term collaborations are appreciated deeply by Lacy. Lacy is grateful to be able to unfold and develop long-term collaborations as the Composer in Residence at the Danish Philharmonic Orchestra (2024-2027) as well as Gävle Symphony Orchestra (SE) (2025-2026).
Lacy continues the exploration of her great interest in staged, spatial and site-specific productions, as well as her love of working with orchestras, chamber ensembles and soloists, in different collaborative productions.