When I was 17 years old, I dropped out of the Royal Danish Academy of Music, where I had been studying organ and composition for a year and a half.
I had started when I was 16, just after finishing 9th grade, and had been granted special permission to study both subjects at the same time. It was not the academic or musical side that became too difficult. It was the human side. I was too young, too stubborn, and too immature. At the same time insecure and awkward, yet filled with enormous self-confidence. That is not always a good combination.
In the end, it became too much. I felt I was suffocating, and after the Christmas break of 1994/95, I stopped. It was a liberation, but in many ways I also stepped out of the established musical life in Denmark.
I went my own way, for better and for worse. For better, because I was able to follow my intuition and let my musicality unfold freely. I was not shaped by a system or by other people’s expectations of what one “ought” to do. For worse, because a system does not only restrict. Under the right circumstances, it can also be liberating. Perhaps I needed more guidance and advice than I understood at the time.
My father, who was an organist and cantor as well as a painter and sculptor, died in 1996 after a long battle with cancer. His illness, and later his death, may also have influenced the decision I had made. After he died, which hit me very hard, I felt somewhat directionless. Of course I had support from my mother, the rest of my family, and my friends, and I had plenty to do: musical assignments, commissions, and concerts. But I missed my father, also as a mentor.
Over the years, I did manage to create a great deal of music that I am still proud of and grateful for today. I found my own way.
Whether it would have been better if I had endured the pain and stayed at the Academy, I do not know. I actually doubt it, but that will always remain a counterfactual thought experiment.
Nevertheless, the thought of completing the unfinished part of my education would return from time to time. And in November 2023, I decided to look into it more seriously. I called the organist Mikkel Andreassen, whom I knew only slightly, but knew to share my interest in the art of improvisation, simply to ask for advice.
That conversation quickly developed and ended with an encouragement to apply to the Danish National Academy of Music in Esbjerg, where he was professor of organ. The application deadline was less than a week away, and suddenly I had to make another potentially life-changing decision.
I decided to apply and went to the entrance examinations in January 2024, during a severe snowstorm. I even became ill during the exams, but I completed them and was admitted later that year.
Since I had no exams from my earlier studies, I had to start all over again. I had left the Academy after a year and a half, and at that time the first exams came only after two years. So I also had to take entrance examinations in all subjects.
Because of my many years of musical work and experience, however, I was allowed to complete the entire five-year programme, three years of bachelor studies and two years of master’s studies, in two years: one bachelor year and one master’s year. The condition was that I had to take every subject and pass every exam. So I became very busy. Especially during the intense bachelor year, where most of the subsidiary subjects are placed.
It was demanding, difficult, and extremely intense, but also one of the most musically rewarding experiences I have had. I was forced to refresh everything I already knew and to add a great deal of new knowledge and experience to it.
I passed my bachelor exam in June 2025 and continued with the master’s programme in August, now with Tina Christiansen as my teacher, as Mikkel Andreassen had decided to stop teaching at the Academy.
And that brings us to today.
I played my master’s exam concert and passed the final exams two weeks ago, thereby completing a journey that, in a sense, had lasted 34 years. Last Friday, I graduated from the Academy.
It still feels completely unreal, but also wonderful.
Now I can return to the future.
