“Bjarke Mogensen is an astonishment on record. Once heard, never forgotten”. So writes one of the world’s leading music critics, Norman Lebrecht. Bjarke Mogensen (b. 1985 on the island of Bornholm) is the new star of the accordion in a country where there are already fine accordion traditions. He is one of those rare talents who seems to have been born with his instrument. Bjarke Mogensen had his instrument strapped to his shoulders at the age of seven. Within just a few years he had reached an amazingly high standard. At 13 he made his debut as a soloist in a German TV broadcast with the Munich Symphony Orchestra.
At 14 he both won the Gold Medal and the Talent Prize in the Berlingske Tidende Music Competition and received the Jacob Gade Grant. His popular breakthrough in Denmark came when he won DR TV’s soloist competition "Spil for Livet", and the same year won the Victor Borge Music Prize. He studied with Geir Draugsvoll at the Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen and today himself teaches chamber music in the same place. Bjarke Mogensen has given solo concerts in many parts of the world, from New York to Moscow, from Iceland to Turkey. He has performed chamber music with the violinist Augustin Dumay and Gidon Kremer.
As a soloist he has also worked with orchestras like the Moscow Virtuosi, Kremerata Baltica, the Danish National Symphony Orchestra and the Copenhagen Philharmonic, conducted by among others John Storgårds, Lan Shui, Rolf Gupta and Vladimir Spivakov. His repertoire is almost unlimited and ranges from folk music and his own transcriptions to brand new works for accordion.
A long succession of collaborations with prominent living composers has resulted in many new compositions – concertos, chamber music and solo works – dedicated to Bjarke Mogensen. Already during his student years he has released 4 CDs performing solo works and accordion-concertos on the labels Orchid Classics and Dacapo Records which recieved rave reviews.