Trio Mediaeval

contact

Xenia Groh-Hu

xh(at)karstenwitt.com

+49 30 214 594-224

Floriane Schroetter

fs(at)karstenwitt.com

+49 30 214 594-210

General Management

Dates

10.12. 20:00
Stavanger Concert Hall

Alleluia: a newë work

Det hev ei rosa sprunge

O helga natt

Trio Mediaeval

Linn Andrea Fuglseth

Anna Maria Friman

11.12. 20:00
Stavanger Concert Hall

Alleluia: a newë work

Det hev ei rosa sprunge

O helga natt

Trio Mediaeval

Linn Andrea Fuglseth

Anna Maria Friman

Jorunn Lovise Husan

biography

Anna Maria Friman, Linn 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.

The current season’s engagements include invitations to the Macao International Music Festival, Bozar Brussels, the Bavarian Radio’s Musica Viva with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and the International A-cappella Week Hannover.

Trio Mediæval's first CD on ECM Records, Words of the Angel, immediately reached Billboard's Top 10 Bestseller list and was named the Stereophile "Recording of the Month" in April 2002. Further releases followed in 2004 and 2005, followed in October 2007 by the trio’s long-awaited CD of Norwegian ballads and songs entitled Folk Songs, which immediately received enthusiastic reviews. Folk Songs was nominated for a Grammy in the Best Chamber Music Performance category the following year. Their recording A Worcester Ladymass was selected by the German Record Critics’ Award as one of the best new releases in the Early Music category and also met with the highest critical acclaim. Trio Mediæval’s album Aquilonis was released in November 2014 on ECM and was chosen as 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.”

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 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 was so fascinated by the Trio Mediæval’s voices that she wrote a piece for them entitled Steel Hammer. Together with the Bang on a Can All-Stars, the trio premiered Steel Hammer in New York's Carnegie Hall in 2009 and revived this programme again in 2013 in Bruges, Uppsala, and at the Barbican Centre London. In 2016/17 the trio appeared on the GrauSchumacher Piano Duo’s CD “Concerti II” in John Adams’ Grand Pianola Music.

2019/2020 Season

This biography is to be reproduced without any changes, omissions or additions, unless expressly authorised by the artist management.

www.triomediaeval.no

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Reviews

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, 16/9/2019

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, 10/5/2019

Their flowing line, immaculate intonation and generosity of spirit are simply unmatched by any comparable group.
The Australian, Graham Strahle, 12/3/2019

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, Martin Borck, 5/2/2019

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, Günther Huesmann, 7/3/2017

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, Nick Lea, 3/3/2017

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, Andrew Mellor, 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, Jason Victor Serinus, 21/5/2017

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, Garrett Sholdice, 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, June 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.
The Times, January 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, Gert Deppe, 2/5/2013

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, Graham Rogers, 11/3/2011

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, Richard Morrison, 10/7/2008

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, Matthew Guerrieri, 3/4/2007

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Programme proposals

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.

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 cooperation with the Jazz Trio Mats Eilertsen Trio. Watch a video

FOLK SONGS

The Trio Mediaeval presents new arrangements of Norwegian ballads and songs accompanied by the hardanger fiddle, the melody chimes and the shruti box.

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Symphony Orchestra

David LANG	Reason to believe (2011)
John ADAMS	Grand Pianola Music (1982)

CHRISTMAS SONGS	arr. by Gaute Storaas, Helge Sunde
FOLK SONGS	arr. by Helge Sunde, Peter Winroth

Chamber Orchestra / Ensemble

TONU KORVITS	Kellamäng-Bells (2016)
ANDREW SMITHS	Songs of Solomon: Rose of Sharon (2013)
JULIA WOLFE	Steel hammer (2009)
MICHAEL GORDON, DAVID LANG, JULIA WOLFE	Shelter (2005)

MEDIEVAL HYMNS	Arr. Trio Mediaeval, Arve Henriksen, Helge Sunde, Jon Øivind Ness
from Great Britain and Scandinavia

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Media Centre

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Discography

Rímur

Trio Mediaeval; Arve Henriksen, trumpet
ECM, 2017, 4814742

Concerti III

Francis Poulenc - Colin McPhee - John Adams
GrauSchumacher Piano Duo; Trio Mediæval; Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin; Brad Lubman, conductor
NEOS 2017, 21703

THE MAGICAL FOREST

Sinikka Langeland, Arve Henriksen, Trygve Seim, Anders Jormin, Markku Ounaskari, Trio Mediaeval
ECM Records, 2016

Song of Songs

Trio Mediaeval, Garth Knox, Agnes Vèsterman, Sylvain Lemêtre, Cliona Doris
Louth Contemporary Music Society, LCMS1502

Aquilonis

Trio Mediaeval
ECM Records, 2014, ECM New Series 2416

Steel Hammer, Julia Wolfe

Trio Mediaeval; Bang on a Can All-Stars
Cantaloupe Music, 2014

A Worcester Ladymass

ECM Records, 2011, ECM New Series 2166

Folk Songs

Trio Mediaeval; Birger Mistereggen, percussion, Jew's harp
ECM Records, 2007, ECM New Series 2003

Stella Maris

ECM Records, 2005, ECM New Series 1929

Soir, Dit-Elle

ECM Records, 2004, ECM New Series 1869

Words of the Angel

ECM Records, 2002, ECM New Series 1753

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Magazine

Trio Mediaeval: Ars Antiqua in Castile

“The Cistercian Convent of Las Huelgas was one of the largest in Europe and one of the most powerful ecclesiastical institutions in Spain. At some point in the 1320s, the convent assembled one of the largest collections of polyphonic music to survive today. The so-called Las Huelgas manuscript includes works from all over Europe,” explains the Trio Mediaeval about their new programme The Conductus in Castile, which will have its first festival performance this spring at the Schwetzingen Festival....

Tracing 'A Worcester Ladymass'

When Henry VIII set off on his quest to dissolve monasteries throughout his kingdom, this was a turning point not only for religion and economy, but also for the history of English music: while the king, a keen musician himself, is today known as a patron of Renaissance composers, his systematic destruction of the monastic libraries in the 1530s account for the fact that only a minute amount of mediaeval sacred music was preserved – many manuscripts merely survived because they were set aside as scrap paper....