NOR59 String Institute was originally founded in 1972 as Nordstrandhogda String Orchestra, an amalgamation of several school orchestras from local schools in the Nordstrand area of Oslo, Norway. In 2009 Thorn Magnus Reymert took over as conductor. At that time the orchestra consisted of 12 members. Reymert had high ambitions and a desire to create a large and unique orchestral environment. A focus on recruitment was initiated, and today the orchestra has 130 members divided into five levels: chamber, main, junior, aspirant, and pre-aspirant orchestras. Diversity is a key value in NOR59, something which is consciously developed in order to create an orchestral environment where everyone has the opportunity to participate regardless of their particular background. The musicians on this album are between 13 and 17 years old. For this album, the orchestra has chosen works by Tchaikovsky and Shostakovich for an exciting Russian programme.

Classical Music

Staszek Plewniak writes: "When I think of Christmas time, I think of the two very special days spent with my family before Christmas Eve each year: sneaking around the kitchen full of dishes prepared for the Christmas Eve table; cleaning the house, and enjoying it; building the fire in the fireplace; and the most exciting of all, decorating the Christmas tree. We like to do all these things while listening to Christmas songs. In the company of these songs Christmas is a truly blissful atmosphere of real joy, overwhelming us, and glowing with magic. This is the time when we only venture out into the winter landscape to go sledding or to make a snowman with the children, and then hurry back home to drink hot chocolate and watch Christmas movies. I associate these days with the songs that I love to listen to on the radio, and which have long been my Christmas musical dream. For ten years the dream has been of recording this album with Stan and Natalia, and each year under the Christmas tree we also wished each other to accomplish a musical project together. For me releasing this album is the fulfillment of a cherished dream, and today the realization of this ambition leaves me floating a few meters above the earth."

Classical Music

Stefan Plewniak writes of his new release with the Cappella dell’Ospedale della Pieta: “It is like rock and roll for a violinist to discover his music. So many different patterns within a definite form. So much passion in Vivaldi to push our instrument to its limits, as far as he could. For me, this music expresses the joy, sun, excitement, vitality, passion, and all the feelings and experiences you encounter in Venice, including the light, different smells, colors of the sky and buildings, the sounds of the crowd, the special energy of the people. Vivaldi’s music is strongly connected to the Carnival. Even if mainly operas were written for that period, the music business was strongly focused on this, the most festive time of the year. I feel that instrumental music was no less affected by this Carnival energy than opera.”

Today, it is difficult to imagine a world without the music of Handel. His operas, however, were already looked over even in the composer’s lifetime. Virtuosic and bristling with difficulties, his multithreaded works in the Neapolitan style quickly went out of fashion, and over time they have been almost completely forgotten. Only the twentieth century cracked open the doors to this extraordinary music, whetted the appetites of music lovers with performances of the most daring arias. There is nothing surprising in this- Handel’s sense of opera was incomparable, as evidenced by not only the ease of writing subsequent stage works, but also an exceptional talent for portraying human emotions with music. What we find so attractive in the music of Handel is the powerful emotional charge, making it timeless. What are actually the most successful arias from his operas, if not the musical essence of various shades of infatuation, hatred, despair or joy? Even though characters of the tacks mentioned in this recording come from distant times and spaces, their feelings still resonate with contemporary listeners, allowing a deeper insight into the full mysterious dynamics of love. These arias are performed by Natalia Kawalek and Jakub Jozef Orlinski, two young opera stars.

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REVIEWS:

This recording announces exciting new talents on several fronts. First is that of countertenor Jakub Józef Orlinski, a colorful, expressive singer endowed with plenty of power. Also to be noted is the spectacular Natalia Kawalek, who’s classed as a mezzo-soprano but runs the whole gamut from a low growl to light agility at the top, in many pieces that would generally be considered soprano arias. Complaints? Poorly edited translations in the booklet.

– All Music Guide (James Manheim)

It is the nuanced singing of countertenor Jakub Józef Orlinski that is fully to the fore in a recital partnered with mezzo-soprano Natalia Kawalek and their Polish compatriots Il Giardino d’Amore. Orlinski’s intuitive phrasing, sweet precision and sense of dramatic moods are consistently appealing.

– Gramophone

Carnival in Venice, the event people are talking about throughout Europe, is indeed the accumulation of the numbers of games, which were allowed to be played only in that season, unless there are other special reasons for celebration. In this sort of entertainment, we can enumerate comedies, operas, casino games, ballet, parades, bull fights, tightrope dances, puppet shows, and jugglers' performances. At that point in the celebration, everyone is allowed to wear masks all day long. In the old days, the carnival would start on the second day of Christmas and go throughout the beginning of the new year. The reason this was eventually postponed by officials was concern for public safety and the fact that many people were using masks as disguise to commit crimes. This release is to celebrate not only the carnival but also the works of Antonio Vivaldi. The form of Venetian opera was evoked by the baroqu eaesthetics: it demanded richness of impressions, diversity, contrasts, surprises but at the same time full pleasure transmitted from the stage. That is why the perfect solution was found in weaving dramatic action and love affairs. The public experienced a huge load of emotions throughout the performance. When the carnival was in full swing, Venice would experience up to five operatic productions a year!