Nidaros

Bob Chilcott is one of Britain’s most popular and respected composers and his choral music is performed worldwide. He has always embraced a broad stylistic palette and his writing for voice combined with jazz instrumentation gives these works a sense of vitality and energy. Performed by leading jazz soloists and Commotio, the distinguished promoters of contemporary repertoire, this sequence of brilliant villanelles, folk song arrangements and witty settings reveals once again the breadth of Chilcott’s musical imagination.

Norwegian folk musician Sinikka Langeland, singer and player of the kantele (the Finnish table harp) is a distinctly non-traditional traditionalist, redefining "folk" in successive projects. 'Maria's Song' finds her in the company of two distinguished classical musicians - organist Kare Nordstoga and "giant of the Nordic viola" Lars Anders Tomter - and on a mission to restore Marian texts to sacred music, weaving folk melodies in between the timeless strains of J S Bach. Langeland made a lot of friends with her sparkling ECM debut Starflowers: "There are jewels everywhere on this arresting example of ego-free music-making. One of the albums of this or any other year" raved the Irish Times. Where Starflowers brought Langeland into the orbit of jazz improvisers, Maria's Song is a meeting and cross referencing of folk and 'classical' energies, and also a righting of historical 'injustice': Religious folk songs are amongst the most distinctive elements of the Norwegian folk tradition, yet the Virgin Mary rarely appears in them.