Contact
Katrin Matzke-Baazoug km@karstenwitt.com+49 30 214 594-213
Trio Mediaeval's new album presents the music of the Old Hall Manuscript, a long-lost collection of English motets and masses of the Middle Ages, together with works composed especially for the trio.
As promised by its title, the new CD of Trio Mediaeval provides comfort: Solacium combines lullabies, hymns, and chorales from the Nordic countries with newly composed works.
Eclectic and cosmopolitan, from a mediaeval point of view: Anna Maria Friman, Linn Andrea Fuglseth and Jorunn Lovise Husan perform repertoire from the Codex Las Huelgas.
Anna Maria Friman Linn Andrea Fuglseth Jorunn Lovise Husan
The brilliant Scandinavian singers of Trio Mediæval have created a fascinating and unique world of sound, which they give life to with unerring virtuosity. Founded in 1997 in Oslo, Trio Mediæval’s specialised repertoire features ballads and songs from the Norwegian Middle Ages, polyphonic music arranged by the three singers themselves from medieval England, France and Italy, as well as contemporary works written specifically for the ensemble. More recently the trio have been working to create new kinds of aural experiences with musicians and ensembles from the jazz and world music scenes, including Rolf Lislevand, Nils Økland, Sinikka Langeland, Arve Henriksen and the Mats Eilertsen Trio.
After performing at Wigmore Hall and MDR Musiksommer last season, the trio will travel to AMUZ Festival in Belgium and to the United States of America for two tours this season.
Trio Mediæval broke out with their debut release on ECM Records in 2002: their album Words of the Angel immediately reached Billboard’s Top Ten list and was Stereophile’s "Recording of the Month". Two further releases followed in 2007, including the Grammy-nominated Folk Songs, featuring Norwegian ballads and songs. 2011’s A Worcester Ladymass was also released to much acclaim, including being selected as one of the best new releases by the German Record Critics' Award. Aquilonis, released in 2014, was named one of the best recordings of the year by the New York Times.
At the beginning of 2017 the vocal ensemble’s eighth recording with ECM was released. RIMUR is a collaborative project with jazz trumpeter Arve Henriksen and immediately drew comparisons to Jan Garbarek’s and the Hilliard Ensemble’s renowned Officium project. The recording reached the top five of the UK classical charts and received enthusiastic press: the German radio station SWR2 stating that “the two genres do not see eye-to-eye, but rather ear-to-ear: Rímur is a masterpiece of mutual empathy.” In 2016/17 the trio appeared on the GrauSchumacher Piano Duo’s CD “Concerti II” in John Adams’ Grand Pianola Music. In April 2020, NXN Recordings / Naxos Norway released Memorabilia, a collaboration with the Mats Eilertsen Trio. Trio Mediaeval’s latest CD, Solacium, a collection of hymns and lullabies, is their first release with the Norwegian label 2L.
Trio Mediæval has performed throughout Europe in prestigious venues such as the Oslo Concert Hall, Bozar Brussels, De Doelen Rotterdam, Muziekgebouw aan’t IJ Amsterdam and the Wiener Konzerthaus, as well as at renowned festivals, among them the Bergen Festival, Cheltenham Music Festival, Snape Proms/Aldeburgh Music, SWR RheinVokal Festival, Schwetzinger SWR Festival, Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Niedersächsische Musiktage, the Dresden Music Festival and the Adelaide Festival. The ensemble is a regular guest at London’s Wigmore Hall, and several engagements have also taken them beyond Europe, including performances at the Hong Kong Arts Festival, Adelaide Festival, Macao International Music Festival, and Carnegie Hall.
The trio collaborates with a multitude of contemporary composers including Gavin Bryars, Ivan Moody, Oleh Harkavyy and Andrew Smith. As a result of their collaboration with Michael Gordon, Julia Wolfe, David Lang and with the musikFabrik Cologne, the trio premiered Shelter, their biggest multimedia contemporary music project to date. Julia Wolfe then created a new work for the singers, Steel Hammer, which they premiered with the Bang on a Can All-Stars at Carnegie Hall.
2022/2023 Season
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Medieval Music
Machaut and the Kings of Cyprus – with John Potter, tenor
A unique vocal quartet exploring the Machaut Mass with motets and chant from medieval Cyprus
The Conductus in Castile
The Cistercian Nunnery of Las Huelgas was one of the largest in Europe; enjoying immense royal prestige, it was also one of the most powerful ecclesiastical institutions in Spain. At some point in the 1320s, the nunnery assembled one of the largest collections of polyphonic music to survive today. The so-called Las Huelgas manuscript includes works from all over Europe, and from the late twelfth century up to the time the manuscript was copied, including conductus, sequence and motet. Some indigenous pieces were added later in its history. ‘The Conductus in Castile’ captures the cosmopolitan and transcendent qualities of the Las Huelgas repertory, and brings the scintillating music of the fourteenth century to life for the twenty-first.
“Aquilonis”
is a musical journey from Iceland to the Mediterranean along the shores of Scandinavia and Great Britain presenting chants from the Icelandic Office of St Thorlak, Norwegian hymns, English medieval carols, Italian Laude and new music commissioned by the Trio Mediaeval.
Scandinavian Folk Songs
In what is probably their best-known program, Trio Mediaeval presents Norwegian ballads and folk songs in new, timeless arrangements, accompanied by the sounds of the Hardanger fiddle, shrutibox, and bell sticks.
SolaciumCombination of lullabies, hymns, and chorales from the Nordic countries with newly composed works.Featuring Mats Eilertsen on bass and Trygve Seim on saxophone (also possible a cappella)
JAZZ COLLABORATIONS
Rimur
The Trio Mediaeval has been performing with the Norwegian jazz trumpeter Arve Henriksen for many years. This artistic collaboration fosters a sympathetic dialogue between ancient music, jazz and improvisation, and has been celebrated by audiences and critics alike at London's Wigmore Hall, as well as at numerous international festivals. Their ECM recording “Rimur” has been released in March 2017 to great critical acclaim. In their new programme "Rimur" the artists explore the mediaeval musical connection between Norway and Iceland presenting chants and folk songs from both countries.
Memorabilia
A collaboration with the Scandinavian jazz group Mats Eilertsen Trio, consisting of traditional Mass works mixed, blended, and contrasted with poems by the Norwegian writer Tor Ulven.
Watch a video
CHRISTMAS PROGRAMME
Wolcome YoleScandinavian traditional Christmas songs and hymns, English medieval Carolsand contemporary works written for Trio Mediæval (by David Lang and Andrew Smith among others)
Trio Mediæval delivers sublime, realistic-sounding performances (...) No collection of facts can convey the mesmerizing beauty of this recording. Each performance is imbued with an indelible purity that evokes memories of women's quartet Anonymous 4 but in far better sound. (…) Auditioned in silence, Solacium conveys the divine nature of existence with transporting purity.
STEREOPHILE, 8/10/2021
“The sound and phrasing could hardly have been in any greater accord. Anna Maria Friman, Linn Andrea Fuglseth, Jorunn Lovise Husan, and John Potter, members of the world-famous Hilliard Ensemble for 18 years, demonstrate the greatest virtuosity with their singing and offer a palette of unique, mysterious timbres.”
RHEINPFALZ PFÄLZISCHE VOLKSZEITUNG, 16/09/2019
“In the delicate interplay of sleigh bells and shruti boxes, underscoring the vocals alongside a drone organ tone, a special atmosphere is created – one which eludes a purely sacred definition. The intricate and complex tone poems find lively expression in the bright, clear voices of the three singers.”
MANNHEIMER MORGEN, 10/05/2019
“Their flowing line, immaculate intonation and generosity of spirit are simply unmatched by any comparable group.”
THE AUSTRALIAN, 03/2019
“The three singers were not only interpreters who conveyed the beauty of music over the centuries, but they themselves seemed to be filled with the music. Inspired by the inner urge to reach a higher dimension through singing, they soared beyond the audible, and took the audience with them.”
WESTFÄLISCHE NACHRICHTEN GRONAU, 05/02/2019
“Here, the two genres do not see eye-to-eye, but rather ear-to-ear: 'Rímur' is a masterpiece of mutual empathy.”
SWR 2 CD-Tipp, 07/03/2017
“From the opening track, 'St Birgitta Hymn – Rosa rorans bonitatem', with Arve's delicately haunting trumpet this is a captivating record that defies categorization. Let this one slip under your radar at your peril.”
JAZZ VIEWS, 03/03/2017
“The trio sing with their usual combination of precision, imagination and deep care with text and ornamentation. Arve Henriksen’s trumpet sounds like a flute, a seabird, a human voice, a distant wind. […] Anna Maria Friman’s resonant, zingy Hardanger fiddle has particular allure. Some of the songs themselves, as in the simple Swedish shanty ‘Du är den första’ (‘Your hand is the first I have ever held’), move deeply with their simplicity.”
GRAMOPHONE, 05/2017
“To everything, Trio Mediaeval brings its rare blend of smooth, touchingly plaintive and pure vocalism. […] Henriksen's spare and tasteful improvisations are perfectly apt, and only serve to deepen the sacredness of the hymn. […] All three instruments (trumpet, hardanger fiddle, shruti box) add a cross-cultural, time-traveling dimension to Trio Mediaeval's pristine sound. When the women transition from monophonic, multi-octave chant to intriguing polyphony […] their sound is exquisite.”
STEREOPHILE, 21/05/2017
“And lyrically striking – the three beautifully matched female voices of Trio Mediaeval intone a list of possessions gleaned from the Biblical Song of Songs, each prefixed by formulas such as ‘just your…’ or ‘and my…’. A finely balanced instrumental trio of violist Garth Knox, cellist Agnès Vesterman and percussionist Sylvain Lemêtre supplies just the right amount of punctuation and counterpoint – bass drum strokes, snatches of plucked cello, a plaintive viola descant – the effect is mesmeric.”
THE JOURNAL OF MUSIC, 16/09/2015
“If you've been lucky enough to hear Trio Mediaeval in concert you will have experienced something very special: a sense of being a privileged participant in a timeless, numinous ritual, enveloped by voices that seem like some celestial exhalation yet brim with real human warmth and sensuousness. [...] Transitions between centuries are achieved seamlessly, naturally and imperceptibly, while juxtapositions of music from Iceland, Italy and England complement each other rather than clash. Enchanting individually and as a unit, Anna Maria Friman, Linn Andrea Fuglseth and Berit Opheim produce exquisite, shimmering, luminous lines, subtly underpinned in places by Hardanger fiddle (Friman), portable organ (Fuglseth) and melody chimes (all three).”
BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE, 06/2015
“Trio Mediaeval have light, flexible, pristinely tuned voices, warm expressivity and the taste to produce ravishing soundscapes out of dry-as-dust plainchant and ancestral Nordic folktunes without sentimentalising the material.”
FONO FORUM, 03/2015
“Pure joy from the beginning to the end. […] Harmonised in every detail, the Trio impressed with excellently skilled and well-modulated voices which moved effortlessly between articulation and Belcanto.”
HANNOVERSCHE ALLGEMEINE ZEITUNG, 02/03/2013
“It has been well worth the wait. A Worcester Ladymass is a glorious experience […] Taken as a whole, this album is an absolute delight. Whether you simply want to wallow in a wave of seductive tones, or sit up and revel in the superbly-rendered polyphonic complexities, Trio Mediaeval ensure that the experience will be a wonderfully enriching one.”
BBC.CO.UK, 11/03/2011
“These three voices blended with a supernatural clarity and beauty that might cause even a confirmed agnostic to contemplate a spark of divinity in these centuries-old manuscripts.”
THE NEW YORK TIMES, 26/11/2008
“Light, beautifully tuned voices, wonderful dynamic variety, perfect rapport, imaginative presentation – a true masterclass in a cappella singing. […] Beg, borrow, steal or (preferably) buy their CDs on the ECM label.”
THE TIMES, 10/07/2008
“The trio have breathtaking purity of intonation along with their all-but-vibratoless tone. Harmonies course with flowing exactness; unisons are flat-out uncanny. […] The group opted more for shades of delicacy, rounding off phrases with a jeweller’s precision, letting their timbre gently ride the church's reverberation rather than cutting through it.”
THE BOSTON GLOBE
Trio Mediæval in Luxembourg
TRIO MEDIÆVAL @ A-cappella-Woche Hannover 2022 | Podcast 7
Trio Mediæval at the Petrikirche Seehausen, MDR-Musiksommer 2022
Trio Mediæval & Arve Henriksen @ Dobrsska Brana, 17 August 2019
Trio Mediæval & Mats Eilertsen Trio
Lillevan & Trio Mediæval Hamburg 2013
Trio Mediæval Catalina Vicens, organetto2L Norway, 2023, 2L-175-SABD
Trio Mediæval Mats Eilertsen, double bass Trygve Seim, saxophone2L Norway, 2021, 2L-165-SABD
Trio Mediæval, Mats Eilertsen TrioNXN Recordings / Naxos Music Group, 2020
Trio Mediaeval; Arve Henriksen, trumpetECM, 2017, 4814742
Francis Poulenc - Colin McPhee - John AdamsGrauSchumacher Piano Duo; Trio Mediæval; Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin; Brad Lubman, conductorNEOS 2017, 21703
Sinikka Langeland, Arve Henriksen, Trygve Seim, Anders Jormin, Markku Ounaskari, Trio MediaevalECM Records, 2016
Trio Mediaeval, Garth Knox, Agnes Vèsterman, Sylvain Lemêtre, Cliona DorisLouth Contemporary Music Society, LCMS1502
Trio MediaevalECM Records, 2014, ECM New Series 2416
Trio Mediaeval; Bang on a Can All-StarsCantaloupe Music, 2014
ECM Records, 2011, ECM New Series 2166
ECM Records, 2005, ECM New Series 1929
ECM Records, 2004, ECM New Series 1869
ECM Records, 2002, ECM New Series 1753