11.12.06
Norwegian trio joins Cantus for blend of old, new
Minneapolis Star Tribune
Michael Anthony

Introducing the Cantus concert Saturday night at St. Olaf Catholic Church, Michael Hanawalt, the group's executive director, described the program as an event of historic importance. "This is the first time," he said, "we get to sing with some women."

The women in this case were Anna Maria Friman, Linn Andrea Fuglseth and Torunn Ostrem Ossum, who make up the celebrated early-music vocal ensemble from Norway, Trio Medieval. (To be accurate, Friman was born in Sweden.)

For much of this delectable concert, the nine men of Cantus performed as they normally do, as a small male chorus, but alternating brief sets with Trio Medieval, each group drawing from its own large repertoire. Some of the numbers, however, were collaborations, and these -- medieval chants performed in church aisles -- were especially appealing. The men sustained a drone that sounded like a low note on a pipe organ while the women, singing two, perhaps three octaves above them, traced the ethereal lines of the chant, all of which, given the warm acoustics at St. Olaf, made for quite a sonic experience.

The trio's immaculate pitch and bright, clear singing were devoted not just to original manuscripts but to settings of medieval texts by the contemporary English composer Andrew Smith in which phrases in an early style are cast in often quite modern harmonies. The result is strikingly bold music.

Just after intermission, Cantus sang the premiere of Minnesota composer Jocelyn Hagen's deft and word-sensitive setting of "Of You" by e.e. cummings, following that with "Witness," a lively spiritual enhanced by Tom McNichols' booming bass solo. Trio Medieval also sang a set of arrangements of early Norwegian folk tunes, then joined the men of Cantus in a work by an Estonian composer they have championed, Veljo Tormis. The encore, which brought everybody back to the stage, was Smith's arrangement of a Norwegian folk song.