Memorabilia was written in 2016 by jazz bassist and composer Mats Eilertsen and premiered at JazzFest in Trondheim the same year. The work is written for two trios: Mats Eilertsen Trio (Harmeen Franje, piano; Thomas Stronen, drums; and Mats Eilertsen, bass), and the vocal ensemble Trio Mediaeval (the acclaimed vocal trio of the three sopranos Anna Maria Friman, Linn Andrea Fuglseth and Berit Opheim.) Recently recorded in Newtone studio in Oslo, the album is now available, and has been released alongside a concert in the Norwegian Opera House. The music unites the two trios in a sacred, lyrical expression, giving the piano trio room to improvise. The lyrics are a mixture of traditional masses and poems by the Norwegian lyricist Tor Ulven. Darkness and drama meet nicer views of life. About faith, doubt, and time. “Minutes, maybe hours, of your own existence. That you forgot, but I still remember. You live a secret life in someone else’s memory.” (Tor Ulven)
Trio Mediæval’s collection of hymns and lullabies — intimate songs as old as time and as new as tomorrow: this is music with no boundaries, celebrating our common humanity. We’ll never know the first song or the first singer, and we’ll never know what they sang about. But if time could unwind and we could hear it, perhaps we would witness a mother or a father singing the first lullaby. When we sing a hymn or a lullaby we become a link in a chain that began in the unknowable past and will stretch into the infinite future: a timeless continuum of solace and comfort. The new lullabies by Anders Jormin and Sinikka Langeland began in their heads as little musical gifts for real children, and are here sung for all of us by three singers who have sung many a lullaby to their own children, aided and abetted on this album by Trygve Seim, and Mats Eilertsen, fathers both. Hailed as a "fascinating journey with music of timeless beauty", Trio Mediæval’s highly acclaimed first album Words of the Angel in 2001 launched the group into the elite circles of early music ensembles and introduced them to a broad international audience. Formed in 1997, the Grammy nominated vocal ensemble consists of founder members Linn Andrea Fuglseth and Anna Maria Friman, and Jorunn Lovise Husan who joined the group in 2018. Trio Mediæval has recorded eight albums for ECM Records. Solacium is their first release with the Norwegian label 2L.
The unique musical formation Hlaskontrabas Oktet, consisting of four female singers and fourdouble bassists, releases a new "Nordic" album called Kaleidoscapes. The album, which wasrecorded last summer in Iceland and then in the fall at Sono Records studios in the Czech Republic, takes the listener on a musical journey through landscapes that are mysterious, fragile, wild and beautifully melancholic. The nine compositions have been written directlyfor Hlaskontrabas by leading contemporary composers from Norway (Mats Eilertsen, Nilsokland), Iceland (Ragnheidur Grondal and Gudmundur Petursson, Petur Thor Benediktsson), Israel (Adam Ben Ezra) and the Czech Republic (Petr Wajsar, Beata Hlavenkova). Ridina Ahmedova and Petr Tichy, the founders of the band, also contributed each by one piece to thealbum. Ridina says about the recording: "Often you record one instrument at a time, but wechose the path of playing together, live. This way the record gives the listener the right 'live' feeling." Hlaskontrabas Oktet was formed in 2019 as an extension of the original duo project foundedby Czech vocalist, composer and performer Ridina Ahmedova and double bassist and composer Petr Tichy. At the very beginning of the idea to expand the duo to four voices and four double basses was the idea to use live musicians instead of a looper, which Ridina and Petr used to layer tracks over each other in concerts, and to bring their own musical soul to the songs. But it turned out that writing pieces directly for the octet offered the opportunity to arrange and think musically in a completely different way. And the octet soon started to live on it's own. A vibrant, unique and inspiring life. The song Funkle, which was released as the first single, was also accompanied by a documentary video from the octet ´s journey to Iceland. The second single, which will be released on April 12, is the track Mysterious Ride by Israeli double bassist Adam Ben Ezra.
Memorabilia was written in 2016 followed by a premiere at JazzFest in Trondheim. The music is written by jazz bassist and composer Mats Eilertsen and performed by two trios: Mats Eilertsen Trio (Harmen Fraanje, piano: Thomas Strønen, drums and Mats Eilertsen, bass), and the vocal ensemble Trio Mediaeval (the acclaimed trio of Anna Maria Friman, Linn Andrea Fuglseth and Jorunn Lovise Husan), both known for numerous recordings for ECM. This recording was made in Newtone studio in Oslo January 2020. The music unites the two trios in a sacred, lyrical expression, giving the piano trio room to improvise and the vocal trio space to shine. The lyrics are a mixture of traditional masses and poems by the Norwegian lyricist Tor Ulven. About faith, doubt, nostalgia and time.