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Tier 3 · vertical & regionalfull biography

Hans Abrahamsen

Person · male · Kingdom of Denmark · Copenhagen · born 1952 · recording since 2001

Danish composer and music educator (born 1952)

contemporary classical music opera

streaming database database

Listen on Spotify YouTube Music

Also known as Hans Abramsen · ハンス・アブラハムセン

Debut: 2001
Recording span: 22 years
Release groups: 11
Awards: 5
Timeline events: 17
Wiki language versions: 17

Compare this artist Read the biography Jump to timeline

Timeline

17 events▣ Album 10✦ Award 5◦ Birth 1★ Debut release 1

1950s
1. 23 December 1952 · Birth
  Born 1952-12-23
  source: wikidata
2000s
1. 2000 · Award
  Won: Knight of the Order of the Dannebrog
  source: wikidata
2. September 2001 · Debut release
  Debut release: 10 Studies for Piano / Six Pieces for Violin, Horn and Piano / Walden (Version 1995)
  First documented Album in the MusicBrainz discography.
  source: musicbrainz
3. September 2001 · Album
  Album: 10 Studies for Piano / Six Pieces for Violin, Horn and Piano / Walden (Version 1995)
  Album
  source: musicbrainz
4. 2004 · Album
  Album: Stratifications, Nacht und Trompeten, Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, and Recompositions
  Album
  source: musicbrainz
5. 2009 · Album
  Album: Schnee
  Album
  source: musicbrainz
2010s
1. 2013 · Album
  Album: / Walden / Wald /
  Album
  source: musicbrainz
2. 2014 · Album
  Album: Zählen und erzählen
  Album
  source: musicbrainz
3. 2016 · Award
  Won: Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition
  source: wikidata
4. 2016 · Award
  Won: Grawemeyer Awards
  source: wikidata
5. 2016 · Award
  Won: Nordic Council Music Prize
  source: wikidata
6. June 2017 · Album
  Album: 10 Preludes / Six Pieces / Transcriptions of Satie & Nielsen
  Album
  source: musicbrainz
7. 20 October 2017 · Album
  Album: String Quartets no. 1-4
  Album
  source: musicbrainz
8. 2019 · Award
  Won: Léonie Sonning Music Prize
  source: wikidata
2020s
1. 2020 · Album
  Album: Pesson: Future Is a Faded Song / Abrahamsen: Left, Alone / Strasnoy: Kuleshov
  Album
  source: musicbrainz
2. February 2022 · Album
  Album: Schnee: 10 Canons for 9 Instruments
  Album
  source: musicbrainz
3. 21 April 2023 · Album
  Album: Left, Alone
  Album
  source: musicbrainz

Biography

English biography1,167 words · 9 sectionssource: wikipedia-en · licence CC BY-SA 4.0 · revision 1377001321

Biography

Hans Abrahamsen (born 23 December 1952) is a Danish composer born in Kongens Lyngby near Copenhagen. His Let me tell you (2013), a song cycle for soprano and orchestra, was ranked by music critics at The Guardian as the finest work of the 21st-century. His opera The Snow Queen was commissioned and premiered by the Royal Danish Theatre in 2019.
In 2019, Abrahamsen became Knussen Professor of Composition at the Royal Academy of Music.

Early life

His interest in composition and piano began after hearing his father playing piano. His first attempts at "little melodies" were designed to be played with the only two fingers on his right hand that were capable of playing the instrument. After realizing that he would not be able to progress, he shifted his focus to the French horn.
From 1969 to 1971, he studied horn, music theory, and music history at the Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen. While at the conservatory, his music was inspired by his mentors Per Nørgård and Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen. In the 1980s, he continued his studies attending seminars with György Ligeti. In the 1970s and 1980s he taught music privately in Copenhagen. Andy Pape was one of his music composition students.

Early career

Abrahamsen is considered to have been part of a trend called the "New Simplicity", which arose in the mid-1960s as a reaction against the complexity and perceived aridity of the Central European avant-garde, particularly the circle around the Darmstadt School. Abrahamsen's first works conformed to the tenets of this movement. For Abrahamsen, this meant adopting an almost naive simplicity of expression, as in his orchestral piece Skum ("Foam", 1970).
Around this time, he was also involved with a group called the Gruppen for Alternativ Musik, which was designed to allow musicians to "perform new music in alternative forms," and "to develop socially and politically committed music." These ideals can be seen in his Symphony in C which was originally titled Anti-EEC Sats (Anti-EEC Movement). The title was changed "after the composer came to the realization that ' music cannot be against.'" His style soon altered and developed into a personal dialogue with Romanticism which can be seen in his orchestral work Nacht und Trompeten. In 1982, he found early success when this piece was performed by the Berlin Philharmonic. The conductor of that performance, notable composer Hans Werner Henze, soon became a champion of Abrahamsen's music.

Hiatus

From 1990 to 1998, Abrahamsen completed only one work, a short song. According to the composer, “[he] couldn't find the way to make what [he] wanted.” The prevailing attitudes about complexity in music caused him to be "paralyzed by the white paper." Coming out of his hiatus, he began working on new arrangements of Johann Sebastian Bach. The orchestrations of these arrangements included many nods to minimalist composers foreshadowing aesthetic changes in Abrahamsen's music.

Return to music

After his return to composition, his music was radically changed. It combined his early artistic attitudes with newer artistic goals with a modernist stringency and economy into a larger individual musical universe.
Notable works since his return to composition include a piano concerto written for his wife Anne-Marie Abildskov, and the extended chamber work Schnee ("Snow"), where the paring-down of material appears to reach a new extreme. Schnee has also received attention for its construction from both arch-shaped and straight-line processes that unfold over the work's duration and for innovative details such as its inline, composed retuning intervals.
Abrahamsen's let me tell you, a song cycle for soprano and orchestra based on the novella of the same name by Paul Griffiths, was premiered on 20 December 2013 by the Berlin Philharmonic, with soprano soloist Barbara Hannigan (to whom the work is dedicated), conducted by Andris Nelsons. Franz Welser-Möst led the Cleveland Orchestra in the U.S. premiere in January 2016. Abrahamsen won the $100,000 2016 Grawemeyer Award for this work.
The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra gave the British premiere of the song cycle in 2014. The same year CBSO co-commissioned from Abrahamsen a concerto for piano left hand. Left, alone received its world premiere in Cologne in January 2016, performed by pianist Alexandre Tharaud, for whom the concerto was composed. Four months later, Tharaud gave the British premiere for the CBSO, conducted by Ilan Volkov. Abrahamsen has written that being "born with a right hand that is not fully functional" has given him "a close relationship with the works written for the left hand by Ravel and others."
His first opera Snedronningen (The Snow Queen) is a free adaptation of the fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen. It was premiered at the Danish Opera House on 13 October 2019 and received its first performance in English (by Bayerische Staatsoper) at the National Theater in Munich on 21 December 2019.
He is a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music. In 2019, Abrahamsen became Knussen Professor of Composition at the Royal Academy of Music.
Productions of his opera Snedronningen (The Snow Queen) continued internationally, including a staging by the Bavarian State Opera. The recording of that production won the 2022 Gramophone Contemporary Award. The opera brought Abrahamsen the H. C. Andersen Award in 2023, presented at a ceremony in Odense.
A central work of this period is Vers le silence, composed between 2020 and 2021 during COVID-19 lockdown and jointly commissioned by the Cleveland Orchestra, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the NTR ZaterdagMatinee, and the Royal Danish Orchestra. Alongside the horn concerto and the left-hand piano concerto Left, alone, it forms what the composer has described as a personal trilogy. Vers le silence went on to win the Prince Pierre of Monaco Foundation's Musical Composition Prize in 2024.

Orchestra

Vers le Silence (2021)
Drei Märchenbilder aus der Schneekönigin (2018)
Three Pieces for Orchestra (2017)
Bamberger Tanz (2014)
Ten Sinfonias (2010)
Nacht und Trompeten (1981)
Stratifications (1975)
Symphony (1974)
EEC Satz (1972)

Orchestra and soloist

Concerto for Horn and Orchestra (2019) – for horn and orchestra
Left, alone (2015) – for piano left hand and orchestra
let me tell you (2013) – for soprano and orchestra
Double Concerto (2011) – for violin, piano and orchestra
Piano Concerto (1999) – for piano and orchestra

Large ensemble

Schnee (2008) – for flute, oboe, clarinet, percussion, two pianos, violin, viola and cello
Lied in Fall (1987) – for cello and 13 instruments

Chamber music

String Quartet No. 4 (2012) – for string quartet
String Quartet No. 3 (2008) – for string quartet
Ten Studies (1998) – for piano solo
Hymne (1990) – for cello or viola solo
Six Pieces (1984) – for violin, horn, and piano
String Quartet No. 2 (1981) – for string quartet
Walden (1978, 1995) – for wind quintet
Winternacht (1978) – for flute, clarinet, horn, cornet, violin, cello and piano
Denmark Songs (1976) – for soprano, viola, flute, clarinet, percussion, and piano
10 Preludes - String Quartet No. 1 (1973) – for string quartet
Flowersongs (1973) – for 3 flutes
2012 version for flute, oboe, and clarinet
Universe Birds (1973) – for 10 sopranos
Round and in between (1971) – for brass quintet

Discography & profile

Normalised profile

Percentiles are computed over every artist in the database, so a tier-3 artist can still sit in the 95th percentile on a single axis.

Normalised profile metrics with percentile rank
Metric	Value	Percentile
Wikipedia language versions	17	76.4th
Spotify monthly listeners	—	no data
Release groups in DB	11	82.8th
Studio albums	10	91.1th
Awards recorded	5	97.4th
Timeline events	17	92.4th
Recording span (years)	22	49.6th
Genres	4	84.7th

Percentiles are computed at render time; missing values mean the artist has no data on that axis.

Discography (11 release groups · 10 studio albums)

Albums · 10

10 Studies for Piano / Six Pieces for Violin, Horn and Piano / Walden (Version 1995)
2001 · studio album
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Tracklist · 20 tracks · 54:09
110 Studies for Piano: No. 1. Traumlied3:14
210 Studies for Piano: No. 2. Sturm1:25
310 Studies for Piano: No. 3. Arabeske1:55
410 Studies for Piano: No. 4. Ende4:18
510 Studies for Piano: No. 5. Boogie-Woogie2:04
610 Studies for Piano: No. 6. For the Children0:49
710 Studies for Piano: No. 7. Blues1:45
810 Studies for Piano: No. 8. Riviere d'oubli2:43
910 Studies for Piano: No. 9. Cascades2:12
1010 Studies for Piano: No. 10. Le trombe del mattino6:01
11Six Pieces for Violin, Horn and Piano: No. 1. Serenade4:00
12Six Pieces for Violin, Horn and Piano: No. 2. Arabesque1:57
13Six Pieces for Violin, Horn and Piano: No. 3. Blues2:01
14Six Pieces for Violin, Horn and Piano: No. 4. Marcia funebre4:28
15Six Pieces for Violin, Horn and Piano: No. 5. Scherzo misterioso -2:33
16Six Pieces for Violin, Horn and Piano: No. 6. For the Children1:30
17Walden: I. Moderato fluente - Allegro3:30
18Walden: II. Alla marcia4:34
19Walden: III. Andante - Più mosso ma calmo -2:12
20Walden: IV. Allegretto grazioso0:58
Stratifications, Nacht und Trompeten, Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, and Recompositions
2004 · studio album
Search Spotify Search YouTube Music
Tracklist · 15 tracks · 1:02:38
1Stratifications8:52
2Nacht und Trompeten10:21
3Concerto for Piano and Orchestra I. Allegro volante e nervoso1:55
4Concerto for Piano and Orchestra II. Adagio innocente e semplice7:18
5Concerto for Piano and Orchestra III. Tempo di grande gioia2:16
6Concerto for Piano and Orchestra IV. Fluente ma tranquillo3:55
7Befiehl, du deine Wege, BWV 272 (A chorale arranged for 15 instruments)7:03
8Three Piano Pieces op. 59 (Recomposed for 10 instruments), no. 1. Impromptu2:52
9Three Piano Pieces op. 59 (Recomposed for 10 instruments), no. 2. Adagio2:46
10Three Piano Pieces op. 59 (Recomposed for 10 instruments), no. 3. Allegro non troppo4:38
11Breaking (Version for chamber orchestra)5:14
12Four Pieces, from Sechs kleine Klavierstücke op. 19 (Version for chamber orchestra), no. 1. Leicht zart2:06
13Four Pieces, from Sechs kleine Klavierstücke op. 19 (Version for chamber orchestra), no. 2. Langsam0:55
14Four Pieces, from Sechs kleine Klavierstücke op. 19 (Version for chamber orchestra), no. 3. Sehr langsam0:59
15Four Pieces, from Sechs kleine Klavierstücke op. 19 (Version for chamber orchestra), no. 6. Sehr langsam1:28
Schnee
2009 · studio album
Search Spotify Search YouTube Music
Tracklist · 13 tracks · 58:42
1Schnee: Canon 1a8:43
2Schnee: Canon 1b9:12
3Schnee: Canon 2a6:57
4Schnee: Intermezzo 12:01
5Schnee: Canon 2b7:24
6Schnee: Canon 3a6:53
7Schnee: Canon 3b7:20
8Schnee: Intermezzo 21:57
9Schnee: Canon 4a2:34
10Schnee: Canon 4b2:38
11Schnee: Intermezzo 30:41
12Schnee: Canon 5a1:07
13Schnee: Canon 5b1:15
/ Walden / Wald /
2013 · studio album
Search Spotify Search YouTube Music
Tracklist · 8 tracks · 49:49
1Bei Anbruch6:20
2Walden: Moderato fluente - Allegro3:31
3Walden: Alla marcia3:57
4Walden: Andante - Più mosso ma calmo2:14
5Walden: Allegretto giocoso1:05
6In den Wäldern6:32
7Wald17:13
8Zur Nacht8:57
Zählen und erzählen
2014 · studio album
Search Spotify Search YouTube Music
Tracklist · 18 tracks · 50:06
1Four Pieces for Orchestra: I. In sehr langsamer Zeit, immer ausdrucksvoll4:11
2Four Pieces for Orchestra: II. Stürmisch, bewegt1:40
3Four Pieces for Orchestra: III. Fließend und unruhig (Wie ein „Scherzo‐Fragment“)2:00
4Four Pieces for Orchestra: IV. Sehr langsam5:54
5Concerto for Piano and Orchestra: I. Allegro volante e nervoso2:03
6Concerto for Piano and Orchestra: II. Adagio, innocente e semplice6:10
7Concerto for Piano and Orchestra: III. Tempo di grande gioia2:25
8Concerto for Piano and Orchestra: IV. Fluente ma tranquillo4:00
9Ten Studies for Piano: I. Traumlied (Adagio sostenuto)2:25
10Ten Studies for Piano: II. Sturm (Presto)1:17
11Ten Studies for Piano: III. Arabeske (Dolce cantabile)2:01
12Ten Studies for Piano: IV. Ende (Adagio)2:43
13Ten Studies for Piano: V. Boogie‐Woogie (Presto)2:03
14Ten Studies for Piano: VI. For the Children (Moderato innocente)0:57
15Ten Studies for Piano: VII. Blues (Andante rubato)1:52
16Ten Studies for Piano: VIII. Rivière d’oubli (Fluente ma tranquillo)2:28
17Ten Studies for Piano: IX. Cascades (Vivo e scintillante)2:03
18Ten Studies for Piano: X. Le trombe del mattino (Adagio espressivo, molto rubato)3:54
10 Preludes / Six Pieces / Transcriptions of Satie & Nielsen
2017 · studio album
Search Spotify Search YouTube Music
Tracklist · 21 tracks · 49:14
16 Pieces for Horn Trio: No. 1. Serenade (Adagio sostenuto)3:12
26 Pieces for Horn Trio: No. 2. Arabesque (Dolce ma poco nervosa)1:55
36 Pieces for Horn Trio: No. 3. Blues (Andante malinconico)1:45
46 Pieces for Horn Trio: No. 4. Marcia funebre (Adagio assai)3:41
56 Pieces for Horn Trio: No. 5. Scherzo misterioso - Presto - Estatico, sempre presto2:20
66 Pieces for Horn Trio: No. 6. For the Children1:32
73 Gymnopédies: No. 1. Lent et douloureux3:50
83 Gymnopédies: No. 2. Lent et triste2:53
93 Gymnopédies: No. 3. Lent et grave2:30
102 Fantasy Pieces, op. 2, FS 8: No. 1. Romance (Andante con duolo)3:28
112 Fantasy Pieces, op. 2, FS 8: No. 2. Humoresque (Allegretto scherzando)2:38
12String Quartet no. 1 "10 Preludes": I.2:37
13String Quartet no. 1 "10 Preludes": II.1:16
14String Quartet no. 1 "10 Preludes": III.2:12
15String Quartet no. 1 "10 Preludes": IV.1:28
16String Quartet no. 1 "10 Preludes": V.2:17
17String Quartet no. 1 "10 Preludes": VI.2:48
18String Quartet no. 1 "10 Preludes": VII.1:28
19String Quartet no. 1 "10 Preludes": VIII.2:33
20String Quartet no. 1 "10 Preludes": IX.1:35
21String Quartet no. 1 "10 Preludes": X.1:16
String Quartets no. 1-4
2017 · studio album
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Tracklist · 22 tracks · 1:08:19
1String Quartet no. 4: I. Light and airy [High in the sky singing]6:23
2String Quartet no. 4: II. With motion [Dance of Light]3:48
3String Quartet no. 4: III. Dark, heavy and earthy [With a heavy Groove]6:18
4String Quartet no. 4: IV. Gently "rocking" [with utmost sensitivity, babbling]3:58
5String Quartet no. 3: I. Calmo, con tenerezza e simplicita0:59
6String Quartet no. 3: II.5:14
7String Quartet no. 3: III.0:51
8String Quartet no. 3: IV. Molto tranquillo et lontano e legato4:20
9String Quartet no. 2: I. Andante espressivo3:44
10String Quartet no. 2: II. Vivo, ben ritmico2:23
11String Quartet no. 2: III. Tranquillo con delicatezza4:32
12String Quartet no. 2: IV. Presto energico5:12
1310 Preludes [String Quartet no. 1]: 12:30
1410 Preludes [String Quartet no. 1]: 21:14
1510 Preludes [String Quartet no. 1]: 32:21
1610 Preludes [String Quartet no. 1]: 41:27
1710 Preludes [String Quartet no. 1]: 53:21
1810 Preludes [String Quartet no. 1]: 62:12
1910 Preludes [String Quartet no. 1]: 71:28
2010 Preludes [String Quartet no. 1]: 82:51
2110 Preludes [String Quartet no. 1]: 91:56
2210 Preludes [String Quartet no. 1]: 101:17
Pesson: Future Is a Faded Song / Abrahamsen: Left, Alone / Strasnoy: Kuleshov
2020 · studio album
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Tracklist · 8 tracks · 1:02:55
1Left, Alone: I. Very Fast2:36
2Left, Alone: II. Slowly Walking3:27
3Left, Alone: III. Presto fluente1:25
4Left, Alone: IV. Slowly0:53
5Left, Alone: V. Prestissimo tempestuoso1:58
6Left, Alone: VI. In a tempo from another time - In a time for a slow motion - Suddenly in flying time, "Fairy Tale Time"6:57
7Future Is a Faded Song23:38
8Kuleshov22:01
Schnee: 10 Canons for 9 Instruments
2022 · studio album
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Tracklist · 13 tracks · 54:15
1Schnee: Canon 1a8:29
2Schnee: Canon 1b8:40
3Schnee: Canon 2a7:30
4Schnee: Intermezzo 11:14
5Schnee: Canon 2b7:41
6Schnee: Canon 3a5:08
7Schnee: Canon 3b5:13
8Schnee: Intermezzo 21:08
9Schnee: Canon 4a2:39
10Schnee: Canon 4b2:53
11Schnee: Intermezzo 30:30
12Schnee: Canon 5a1:20
13Schnee: Canon 5b1:50
Left, Alone
2023 · studio album
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Tracklist · 18 tracks · 48:36
1Ten sinfonias: I. Molto tempestoso e impetuoso2:42
2Ten sinfonias: II. Allegro energico e con fuoco3:50
3Ten sinfonias: III. Largo molto expressivo e cantabile2:47
4Ten sinfonias: IV. Allegretto semplice8:22
5Ten sinfonias: V. Adagio mesto2:15
6Ten sinfonias: VI. Grave sostenuto ma con moto1:16
7Ten sinfonias: VII. Allegretto giocoso1:37
8Ten sinfonias: VIII. Con movimento ma sempre pesante e rigoroso3:54
9Ten sinfonias: IX. Largo nobilmente3:01
10Ten sinfonias: X. Presto con spirito1:20
11Left, alone: Part I. 1. Very fast1:32
12Left, alone: Part I. 2. Slowly walking3:28
13Left, alone: Part I. 3. Presto fluente (Like a gentle rain, light and bubbly)1:35
14Left, alone: Part I. 4. Slowly2:39
15Left, alone: Part I. 5. Prestissimo tempestuoso2:58
16Left, alone: Part I. 6. In a tempo from another time – In a time of slow motion – Suddenly in flying time, »Fairy tale time«1:34
17Two pieces in slow time: I. Adagio sostenuto2:20
18Two pieces in slow time: II. Adagio molto espressivo1:26

Album · 1

Album release groups, by first release date
Cover	Year	Title	Notes	First release
	2021	SchneeSearch Spotify Search YouTube Music Tracklist · 11 tracks · 1:08:52 1Sirenengesang13:08 2Schnee: Canon 1a9:35 3Schnee: Canon 1b9:57 4Schnee: Canon 2a8:46 5Schnee: Canon 2b8:59 6Schnee: Canon 3a4:51 7Schnee: Canon 3b5:23 8Schnee: Canon 4a3:09 9Schnee: Canon 4b3:03 10Schnee: Canon 5a0:58 11Schnee: Canon 5b1:03	Live	2021

Stats & PK

Percentile within all 23,672 published artists.Put Hans Abrahamsen head-to-head →

Hans Abrahamsen metrics with percentile rank among published artists
Metric	Value	Percentile
Wikipedia language versions	17	76.4th
Spotify monthly listeners	—	no data
Release groups in DB	11	82.8th
Studio albums	10	91.1th
Awards recorded	5	97.4th
Timeline events	17	92.4th
Recording span (years)	22	49.6th
Genres	4	84.7th

Awards & honours

Awards and honours, by year
Year	Award	Result
2000	Knight of the Order of the Dannebrog	won
2016	Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition	won
2016	Grawemeyer Awards	won
2016	Nordic Council Music Prize	won
2019	Léonie Sonning Music Prize	won

Where this record comes from

portrait—Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0 · retrieved 11 October 2026
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hans_Abrahamsen_w_Rattle_%26_Hannigan_London_10_Jan_2019.jpeg
aliases/urls—musicbrainz · CC0 · retrieved 10 October 2026
https://musicbrainz.org/artist/cf07d351-d4c2-4480-939b-f5394da285a4
discography—musicbrainz · CC0 · retrieved 10 October 2026
https://musicbrainz.org/artist/cf07d351-d4c2-4480-939b-f5394da285a4
core—wikidata · CC0 · retrieved 10 October 2026
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q937743
genre—wikidata · CC0 · retrieved 11 October 2026
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q937743
seed-list—wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0 · retrieved 10 October 2026
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Abrahamsen
biography—wikipedia-en · CC BY-SA 4.0 · retrieved 10 October 2026
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Abrahamsen

Why this artist is in the database

List of composers by name

Tier rule: curated genre/region list
Image: NBeale · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Wikidata: Q937743 · MusicBrainz: cf07d351-d4c2-4480-939b-f5394da285a4

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