A Lund University alumnus from the Malmö Academy of Music is among the nominees for the prestigious Nordic Council Music Prize, widely regarded as one of the highest honours in Nordic music. Composer Eli Tausen á Lava, who studied composition, has been nominated for his work Let me cry, a piece that takes inspiration from one of Handel’s best-known arias and transforms it into something entirely new.
Eli Tausen á Lava was born in Tórshavn, the capital of the Faroe Islands, where he spent most of his life at a slow and peaceful pace before moving to Malmö for his studies in 2018. Since then, he has also lived in New York City while completing a Master of Music in Music Theory and Composition at New York University. Today, he is back on the islands.
Photo: Performance in NYC by Edwina Hay
The entire history of music at your fingertips
For Eli, the nomination is both a recognition of his work and a reminder of one of the central challenges facing composers today: how do you create something new when you have the entire history of music at your fingertips? Composers today live and work under the weight of knowing exactly what came before, something composers of the past did not have to deal with.
Eli describes this as being “haunted” by past masterpieces. And it is precisely that haunting that lies at the heart of Let me cry, the work that has earned the 29-year-old composer a nomination for the Nordic Council Music Prize.
Let me cry
The piece takes its starting point in one of the most recognisable works of the past: Handel’s aria Lascia ch’io pianga. Eli borrows its opening bars, simplifies them and distributes them among 16 voices. At first, the voices are out of sync. Gradually, they move towards one another until the familiar Handel melody finally emerges.
The past is there from the beginning. But it does not remain untouched.
His childhood dream was to be French
As a child, Eli was energetic, curious and inventive. He remembers that his first ambition was to be French. Not to learn the language, but actually to be French, an idea that was as ambitious as it was adorably innocent. His second ambition was to become an inventor.
At 14, he taught himself to play the piano. He soon discovered that he particularly enjoyed the process of creating music, and that discovery gave him a clear direction as he applied to his first music programme back home. As he grew up and moved away from his religious upbringing, setting sail for the Malmö Academy of Music, the new city gave him the opportunity to find a community where he, for the first time, felt fully understood.
A creative process guided by the Taoist concept of Wu Wei
His creative process is guided by the Taoist concept of Wu Wei, often translated as “effortless action”. Rather than imposing a fixed idea on a piece, he prefers to follow where the music leads, allowing unexpected directions to emerge. He likens musical ideas to honoured guests, believing they should be welcomed and respected on their own terms.
Let me cry was created in this spirit. After struggling with another composition, he found himself unable to shake the melody of Handel’s Lascia ch’io pianga.
“It finally dawned on me that I could base my piece on Handel’s material,” he recalls.
Once he embraced it as the foundation of the work, the piece quickly came together.
Winners announced on 20 October
With the winner of the Nordic Council Music Prize set to be announced on 20 October, Eli Tausen á Lava reflects on what the nomination means at this stage of his career. While honoured by the recognition, he is careful not to let it shape his artistic choices. Instead, he approaches it with what he describes as “detached gratitude”.
“I feel very honoured that someone looked at my work and said, ‘Yes, this is worth nominating for the Nordic Council Music Prize. I’m immensely grateful for that. At the same time, I try not to think too much about what it means. I often find that I begin to limit myself when I start thinking, ‘Will people like this?’ or ‘Is this going to be successful?’ So even with a prestigious nomination like this one, I try my best to maintain an attitude of detached gratitude. I am very thankful for the recognition and will simply carry on with my work.”
Moving freely between musical worlds
Rooted in classical music, much of Eli’s work remains connected to that tradition. In recent years, however, he has increasingly explored electronic music and other artistic forms, valuing the freedom to move between different musical worlds.
“When I say I’m a composer, certain ideas may come to mind, and I fit within those ideas much of the time. But I also want the freedom to do whatever I want with my music; that’s when I tend to do my best work. Sometimes that means writing a traditional string quartet, but other times it’s an experimental electronic release, a sound installation or a pop opera.”
Next project
That desire to explore new directions continues to shape his work. His next project, an electronic album, is proving to be a complex undertaking. When asked which artists feel particularly new or inspiring to him, he highlights Ninajirachi and Björk. Ninajirachi’s I love my computer stands out for its fresh sound and rare sense of cohesion as a complete artistic work, while Björk continues to inspire through her constant reinvention and openness to new creative possibilities.
For Eli, exploring new sounds and developing new skills is what keeps the creative process alive. He sees artistic growth as a continuous process of pushing boundaries and expanding his capabilities. As he puts it, “If there’s anything I don’t enjoy, it’s feeling limited in what I can do, whether it’s by the expectations of myself or others.”
Read more
The Nordic Council Music Prize focuses on the performance and creation of music of a high artistic standard. The prize is awarded on alternate years to a piece of music by a living composer and to a small or large ensemble.
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