A variety of musical activities
Years of experience in student-based
choir and orchestral activities
Background and Experience
Linköping Academic Orchestra (LAO) – the symphony orchestra at Linköping University (LiU) – is run both as a university student orchestra and a course in orchestra playing at LiU. The members of the orchestra consist of students, alumni and university staff.
The orchestra is a part of the music department at LiU (Linköping University), which also includes: The Linköping University Chamber Choir, Linköping University Women’s Choir and The Linköping University Male Voice Choir.
Our purpose is to provide the university with high quality music activities for students, produce public concerts with the departments’ choirs and orchestra, conduct courses in orchestral playing and choral singing and contribute to the musical elements at the university ceremonies.
The orchestra and the chamber choir are run and funded by the department. The two other choirs are autonomous organizations but with a close collaboration with the department, in which they get the benefit of working with the departments conductors and using the department facilities for rehearsal.
The staff consists of two conductors: director musices Christina Hörnell, conductor of the chamber and male choirs and assistant director musices Merete Ellegaard, conductor of the orchestra and women’s choir. LAO has 40-50 members. The orchestra playing course has also a staff of 8-10 instructors working with the instrumentalists 4-5 times every year.
Linköping University
LiU conducts world-leading, boundarycrossing research in fields that include materials science, IT and hearing. In the same spirit, the university offers many innovative educational programmes, frequently with a clear professional focus and leading to qualification as, for example, doctors, teachers, economists and engineers. LiU was granted university status in 1975 and today has 32,000 students and 4,000 employees. The students are among the most desirable in the labour market and international rankings consistently place LiU as a leading global university.
Activities and experience
The staff has worked with student-based choir and orchestral activities for many years and has a lot of experience in the field. The conductors of LiU are both professional conductors with a wide range of expertise in working with different types of ensembles, both professional and amateur based.
Team
Merete Ellegaard
Partner
Merete Ellegaard
Merete Ellegaard, the conductor of LAO, will be the key person in the project. She has 28 years-experience of conducting orchestras of different levels, both professional and amateur. She has been the artistic leader of 4 different student-based orchestras/choir, for a total of 15 years. Outside her position at the university, she’s an experienced lecturer in the field of leadership and communication. She is also administrator and examiner at the university courses in choral singing and orchestral playing.