Season opening!
An Ocean of Voices

This year's season opening offers music relating to the mysterious ocean. Songs of consolation, liberation and renewal. The concert also marks the beginning of the Soloists' Choir's major An Ocean of Voices. This project will leave its mark on many of the performances the coming years.

Program

Frank Martin (1890 – 1974): Songs of Ariel
Ruth Wilhelmine Meyer (b. 1961): Lokeslottet (world premiere)
Richard Strauss (1864 – 1949): Der Abend
Helmut Lachenmann (b. 1935): Consolation I and II

The Swiss composer Frank Martin has written one of the greatest choir works of all time, Songs of Ariel. The lyrics are taken from William Shakespeare's The Tempest, set on a deserted island. In Martin's playful interpretation we encounter Ariel, spirit of the air, who is trapped on the island. The music describes Ariel's struggle to free himself from his situation as a servant of an exiled duke.

Helmut Lachenman is one of the most significant composers of our time. Consolation I and II were written with the purpose of offering consolation in the face of helplessness and fear. The texts are deconstructed into sounds and syllables, to be performed with virtuosity by the singers.

Richard Strauss' beautiful Der Abend paints a picture of the sea and the sunset. It evokes the evening calm, the lush night and tells of renewal and rebirth.

This evening we also offer a world premiere of Lokeslottet by singer and composer Ruth Wilhelmine Meyer. This is the first work she has written specifically for the Soloists' Choir, where she was a singer herself for seven years.

Lokeslottet, which translates as the castle of Loki, is a name given to an area of hydrothermal vents researchers recently discovered in the Norwegian Sea. Surrounding these vents is an unusual and unusually rich fauna. This inspired Meyer to explore the richness of the human voice, employing everything from ultra-high flute tones to deep bass. Meyer also features as a soloist.