PLEASE NOTE: This text is a translation of an exceptional Danish obituary, written by a well-respected research professor, fellow bass player, researcher and long-time friend of Torben’s. The original is full of quirks, cultural references, and personal humour, which inevitably may not be fully conveyed in English. Every effort has been made, however, to preserve the original tone, humour, and warmth, so that readers can catch a glimpse of Torben’s personality and significance as authentically as possible.

Date: 2 March 2026

Obituary: Torben Westergaard

by Research Professor, PhD and bassist Peter Vuust

Musician, composer, and lecturer in theoretical music teacher education at the Royal Academy of Music in Aarhus (DJMRAMA), Torben Westergaard, has died at the age of 65 after a short illness.

Torben and I were in the same class in high school (at the State Gymnasium Aarhus statsgymnasium, on Fenrisvej) in Aarhus. He lived in the neighbourhood of Åbyhøj and I lived in Hasle – just a couple of hundred metres apart. This was the late 1970s, somewhere in the cultural space between hippies, disco devotees and the first yuppies, with chain dancing at parties and concerts by Gnags, CV Jørgensen and Sneakers. Torben and I were always discussing music – he leaned more towards Weather Report, I towards McCartney. In our class, Torben commanded respect. He possessed a rare mixture of seriousness and understated humour, always with a crystal-clear sense of what truly mattered. Whenever he said something, it was always important, always right, and often unforgettable. Like the time, very much in the spirit of the era, when he spoke out in a Danish class against the endless pursuit of material possessions. One of the others pointed out that Torben himself had apparently just bought a rather expensive Fender bass. “But that’s different,” he replied. “That’s essential. Music is essential.” He simply seemed born to be more mature and grown-up than the rest of us – certainly more than me.

Torben and I played music during the breaks. Once we even skipped a double lesson and drove home just to practise tunes from the Real Book: Stella by Starlight, Autumn Leaves, Satin Doll, and so on. He mostly played piano, but he had also just begun playing the bass. We wrote songs. Torben once wrote: What does a chilli do when it gets chilly? Well it’s perfectly clear – it puts a jumper on, du-ah, it puts a jumper on, du-ah, it puts a jumper on, du-a-a-ah. Always three times tag endings with a “du-ah” on a Beatles-style sixth chord at the end. We were not entirely satisfied with the school’s music teaching and often ended up doing maths homework during the music lessons instead.

Torben’s instinct for what really mattered led him to leave high school in his second year in order to focus on music. Later, however, he re-enrolled and completed his final exams. But suddenly he was playing regularly with Holger Laumann’s orchestra, with Uffe Steen and David Cadogan in the trio Cascadura, filling in with TV-2, and he was even being offered a permanent place role in the famous Aarhus rock band, Gnags – which he turned down because he wanted to pursue a different musical path. He was going to New York to study at The New School. There he found himself in classes alongside future superstars such as Brad Mehldau, Chris Potter and Bill Stewart. So at that time, he was quite simply the hottest bass player in Aarhus. He even played on one of the tracks on a Kasper Winding album, and that was quite something in the early eighties. That must have been the early 1980s. Later he played with Søren Kragh-Jacobsen, who had been a hero to both of us during our State Gymnasium high school years. Which teenager did not know every song from his record “Hinkeruder på motorvejen” by heart? Amazing!

His greatest passion, and the centre of his own compositions, was South American music – especially bossa nova and tango. Personally, I regard the Danish Music Award nominated Tangofied trilogy as a highlight not only in Torben’s career but as a milestone in Danish jazz. It remains a pleasure to listen to that rare combination of harmonically and melodically interesting compositions that also genuinely swing.

Torben was also an outstanding music teacher – precise, direct and immensely reflective. As I said, he took music seriously long before I did. I once asked him how one becomes good at playing jazz, after I had suddenly begun started to practising seriously myself. “Learn the altered scale and transcribe solos from records,” he said. The best advice I have ever received. “Which record should I start with?” I asked. “Milestones,” he said. “It’s a must.” It still is. I showed him what I was practising. “If you’re practising all the right things,” he asked, “why haven’t you become any better?” Said completely straight-faced – but at the time it was exactly the push I needed. Apparently, I was practising the right things. I just had to believe in it.

Later we also became colleagues at DJMRAMA, where he started teaching intaught from 1993 and later got a tenure ship onwards, mainly teaching theoretical music education. From time to time, we would walk from the academy to Åbyhøj, where he stayed with his mother when he was in Jutland. We shared the same principal interests – music and research. His research focus lay primarily within music teacher education, where, like many others, he had become deeply engaged with the ideas of Frede V. Nielsen, with whom he completed a master’s degree. Within the music school community, Torben’s theories and reflections later became an very important part of the foundation for music school teaching. I rediscovered his dry humour, his ever-intelligent conversation – and his remarkable charm.

At the end of 2024 our mutual friend Jens Folmer Jepsen, whom we had gone to high school with and whom we both worked with on numerous projects – Torben more than I – was diagnosed with brain cancer. He was admitted for respite care at Vikærgården. He was gravely ill. Torben and I visited him with bass and guitar and played and sang with him and his wife Anne for several hours. All sorts of songs from our youth. When it suddenly comes close like that, every song suddenly seems to be about life and death. “Nothing lasts forever; soon the summer will be gone, and with it practically everything you love; no wonder you walk around feeling so strange inside” (from a Danish song by CV Jørgensen / Kasper Winding from the film score to the movie “Me and Charlie“ about two young guys who meet and become friends during the summer holidays). Music is still essential. At life’s most important moments, music is the only way we can communicate, – to comfort one another and, for a brief moment, forget the fundamental loneliness of human existence. Shortly afterwards Torben and I played “Lysets engel går med glans” ( a Danish hymn) at Folmer’s funeral – two basses together.

When Torben called me at in the end of October, 2025 to tell me he had just been diagnosed with a brain tumour, he said quite matter-of-factly, in a voice already marked by illness: “What are the odds? Now three of us from the band Erling Erlang & Trio have had brain cancer.” He was just as matter-of-factly in January 2026 when I visited him at home in Hvalsø. By then he had become much worse and struggled to move and speak. He said: “Whatever has happened to my once so eloquent self?” Despite the illness, he was entirely himself – rational sober-minded and deeply emotional at the same time. Matter-of-factly about his illness, emotional when we spoke about his family and children. Always focused on what mattered.

Besides his wife Sara, Torben leaves four children.

Torben is no longer among us. An incomprehensible loss for his family. I, and many others, will miss his enriching inspirational company, his intelligence, his eloquence, his musicality and, above all, his presence.

May Torben’s memory be honoured.