“[Jens is]…a bundle of talent and ideas. Music is his life, and he creates it naturally and flowingly. His music is vibrant, clever and touching.”

Randall Woolf

“[His music]…delves into both the ‘intellectual stimulation’ of progressive metal and Ibsen’s own diverse musical influences.”

Marke Bieschke

“Jens Ibsen was born for music, quite literally. His American father… traveled to Ghana to study West African drumming, and that’s where Ibsen’s story starts…”

Mark Taylor

Featured Works

• Featured Works

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2023

For orchestra

Drowned in Light

Premiered on November 10th, 2023 by the San Francisco Symphony, conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen

Featured Performance: March 23rd, 2024 by the New World Symphony, conducted by Edwin Outwater

Commissioned by the San Francisco Symphony in collaboration with the San Francisco Conservatory in fulfillment of the 2022 Emerging Black Composers Project first prize

All artists have obsessions, and some obsessions are life-long. A few of my own have been classical-era musical forms like sonata and rondo form, modern pop song structures, bass-driven grooves, polyrhythm, and vernacular musical styles—in short, chasing after the sweet spot of what’s catchy and complex. This piece incorporates all of these elements; it is a concise distillation of my musical philosophy and my feelings about the San Francisco Bay Area, my home.

Jens Ibsen · Drowned in Light: II. Nightswimming

2019

For string quartet

Overdrive

Premiered by the JACK Quartet

Overdrive is a progressive metal song for string quartet. It was inspired by the music of Periphery, a band which uses detuned, extended range guitars to create dense, high-octane music. This piece uses brutal, unpitched string techniques to imitate the sounds of metal. Often, the appeal of listening to metal lies in hearing the constant oscillation between clean sounds, harsh, distorted sounds, and all the shades of grey in between. This timbral conflict is the heart of this piece. With it, I hope to evoke the spectacle of this genre which is so dear to my heart.

Upcoming Performances

• Upcoming Performances

Rumpelstiltskin and the Unlovable Children

tickets

Glimmerglass is proud to present the world premiere of the youth opera Rumpelstiltskin and the Unlovable Children by Jens Ibsen and Cecelia Raker. Deep in the forest lives a gaggle of feral, unlovable children. They work their hands to the bone every day in service to the evil wizard Rumpelstiltskin…he makes them do chores! And brush their teeth regularly! And talk about their feelings! It’s the WORST. But then one day, Rumpel tells them the story of how his childhood friend, a talented businesswoman, got forced to marry the king. Suddenly all the Unlovable Children’s narratives about who they are begin to unravel. When Goldie, the eldest of them, learns that she’s actually the long-lost daughter of that Queen, she’s faced with a tough choice: go live the life she'd imagined as a princess, or stay with the unconventional family that has nurtured her true self?