Vagn Holmboe

Vagn Holmboe
(b Horsens, 20 Dec 1909; d Ramløse, 1 Sept 1996). Danish composer and teacher. He was one of seven children of parents who were amateur musicians.

In 1926 he entered the Kongelige danske musikkonservatorium in Copenhagen on Nielsen’s recommendation. At the conservatory he studied principally with Jeppesen (theory) and Høffding (composition); after graduation he went to Berlin for a few composition lessons with Toch. There he met the Romanian pianist Meta May Graf, whom he married in 1933. He spent most of the 1930s teaching privately, studying and collecting various vernacular musics. Then and afterwards he published articles on Balkan and Arabic music and on Danish street cries. His full-length definitive book on the street cries was published in 1988.