Marcus Aurelius Hjelmborg
Composer & Sound Designer
Bio
Composer and sound designer working in theatre, film, radio, audio drama, and sound installations.
As a composer, I write original music across a wide range of genres,
with a particular interest in dramaturgy and sonic spaces.
I also work with what I describe as transformative composition, a practice in which existing material is deconstructed, reconfigured, and reworked into new musical expressions, including remixes and new arrangements of pre-existing music.
As a sound designer, I create sonic environments for theatre productions, art installations, audiowalks, exhibitions, and related formats.
I hold an MA in Audio Design and Musicology, specialising in dramaturgical sound and music.
I am an external lecturer at Aarhus University and teach transformative composition with a focus on technology, including remix and related practices, as well as sound and music across different media in Music, Media, and Communication.
THEATRE
AUDIO DRAMA
SOUND ART
BAND
Quotes
“The decisive element, however, is the music. Composer and sound designer Marcus Aurelius Hjelmborg has created new music that almost fuses film music and musical theatre. Here, fragments of requiems from around the world, including Mozart’s Requiem, are borrowed with great virtuosity, repeated and displaced, so that the tones prick the senses and make the audience receptive to Dracula’s manipulation on stage.
”
Anne Middelboe, Information
(Translated from Danish)
“The greatest strength of the production lies in its seemingly simple yet simultaneously extravagant and previously untested interplay between the art forms of theatre and opera. An impressively accomplished and highly effective achievement.”
Kirsten Dahl, Stiftstidende
(Translated from Danish)
“Marcus Aurelius Hjelmborg has designed a sonic universe that succeeds in completing the performance. We enter the auditorium to the sound of Johnny Cash’s ‘Ring of Fire’ in a forceful rock sampling. We hear faint suggestions of church bells in an electronic sound design as a soundtrack to the father’s walk towards his daughter’s funeral. We hear crackling sounds of the house burning, alongside an entirely natural use of real-world sounds.”
Morten Hede
(Translated from Danish)
“The music by composer Marcus Aurelius Hjelmborg was what truly elevated the performance to new heights.”
Maiken Gadegård, TipAarhus
(Translated from Danish)
“A thunderously good and ominous soundscape by Marcus Aurelius Hjelmborg.”
Jacob Steen Olsen, Berlingske Tidende
(Translated from Danish)
“A heavy music rumbles in the background like the sound of a volcano on the verge of erupting. This is Marcus Hjelmborg’s music when it gets close to the body. And it is good.”
Anne Middelboe, Information
(Translated from Danish)
“Marcus Aurelius Hjelmborg has composed a soundscape for the narrative that strongly reinforces the sense of unease. The old house is full of creaking floorboards, the rush of wind and doors screeching on their unlubricated hinges. The sounds in the garden do consist partly of birdsong and gentle, almost meditative music, but there is also a menacing sound hidden within, like a pulsing heart.”
Trine Wøldiche, iScene