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Trio Mediæval Anna Maria Friman Sunday, November 16, 7pm |
—San Francisco Chronicle
Program
Norwegian Folk Songs
About This Performance
“Singing doesn’t get more unnervingly beautiful,” said the San Francisco Chronicle of this celestial Scandinavian trio’s San Francisco Performances debut in April 2005. Formed just ten years ago, Trio Mediæval is firmly established as one of the world’s premier early music vocal ensembles. For this concert, they veer agilely into the rich realm of their native folk traditions.
Artist Biography
The brilliant Scandinavian voices of Trio Mediæval specialize in a diverse polyphonic repertoire that features medieval music from England and France, contemporary works written for the ensemble, and traditional Norwegian ballads and songs. Founded in Oslo in 1997, Trio Mediæval developed its unique repertory during intense periods of work at the Hilliard Summer Festivals in England and Germany between 1998 and 2000, and subsequently with Linda Hirst and John Potter. "Singing doesn't get more unnervingly beautiful," wrote Joshua Kosman of the San Francisco Chronicle, who declared their San Francisco debut "among the musical highlights of the year." He added, "To hear the group's note-perfect counterpoint—as pristine and inviting as clean, white linens—is to be astonished at what the human voice is capable of."
Trio Mediæval made its US debut in June 2003, performing two sold-out concerts at New Haven's International Festival of Arts and Ideas. Their first US tour followed in February 2004 with concerts in Boston, Chicago, New York, and Washington DC's National Cathedral. Return tour highlights include performances in New York's Carnegie Hall (Weill) and Brooklyn Academy of Music, Washington DC's Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, as well as engagements at San Francisco Performances and Spivey Hall, and a taping for NPR's St. Paul Sunday. They have sung in cities across the country including Denver, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, St. Louis. Ann Arbor, and Minneapolis. Their 2007-08 season includes engagements in Portland, Seattle, Boulder, and a return to Carnegie Hall's Early Music in Weill Recital Hall. This season, the trio will introduce works from their third ECM recording entitled Folk Songs featuring special guest percussionist Birger Mistereggen.
Trio Mediæval has performed throughout Europe, giving concerts and radio broadcasts in Austria, Belgium, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Norway, Spain, Sweden, the Netherlands and the UK in such venues as the Oslo Concert House, the Vienna Konzerthaus, and Wigmore Hall.
The trio delights in performing new music and collaborates with a multitude of contemporary composers, including Gavin Bryars, Piers Hellawell, Roger Marsh, Ivan Moody, Paul Robinson, Thoma Simaku, Oleh Harkavyy, Bjørn Kruse and Andrew Smith. In 2005, the trio premiered Shelter in Cologne Germany. This joint production of Bang on a Can composers Michael Gordon, Julia Wolf & David Lang, German new music ensemble musikFabrik, and Ridge Theater, received its US premiere at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM).
In 2005, Trio Mediæval's highly anticipated third recording, Stella Maris, was released on ECM Records. The album features 12th and 13th-century music from England and France as well as the world premiere recording of Missa Lumen de Lumine by Korean composer Sungji Hong. Trio Mediæval's first CD on ECM Records, Words of the Angel, immediately charted on Billboard's Top 10 Bestsellers list and was the April 2002 Stereophile "Recording of the Month." The second recording, Soir, dit-elle (2004), features Leonel Power's Missa Alma Redemptoris Mater along side works by Gavin Bryars, Andrew Smith and Ivan Moody, and met with similar critical and commercial success. Trio Mediæval has just recorded their fourth album, a collection of Norwegian folk songs, for ECM which is scheduled for release in 2007.
Links/Downloads
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