á Propos

February 1: we learned today that The Theatre of Voices CD of David Lang's Little Match Girl Passion has won a Grammy in the Best Small Ensemble Category. As one of the singers remarked, "Top Hole"!

Our thanks go to all involved in this project - the singers of TOV and Ars Nova Copenhagen; the composer (without whom...); Robina Young and Brad Michel of Harmonia Mundi USA; John Frandsen of Stavnsholt Church (just north of Copenhagen) where the recording was made; and last but not least Knud Madsen who supplied the brake drum.

The group has just returned from a tour of Italy and France. In Italy we performed a program called "Pärt and Early Music" in which the four singers were joined by the Nyyd String Quartet from Estonia to perform the Stabat Mater and a new version of the Missa Syllabica. Despite snow in Bologna and rain in Rome, the trip - we felt - was a great success and we look forward to more concerts with this program and the Nyyds (it means 'new') later this year. The group then went on to Toulouse for a performance of Stockhausen's Stimmung, returning to find a foot of snow in Copenhagen.

On Wednesday Feb 3 I direct Ars Nova in the first performance of Sunleif's Rasmussen's Gylfaginning: a setting for 12 voices and electronics of the opening of the Edda saga. Garnisons Kirke, Copenhagen, 8.00pm. I think this will be an important work by Sunleif - a composer from the Faroe Islands who already made a big impression a few years back with an opera that won him the Nordic Music Prize.

Then to Elsinore and Buxtehude - to record his Danish/Swedish cantatas in the church where he worked for some years before moving south to Lübeck. But first we perform the music in concert on 10th February at 7.30 pm in Copenhagen's
Holmens Kirke.

I round out the month with a performance of music from Bach's own library: Ars Nova and Concerto Copenhagen, in the Dronningesalen at the Royal Library, Feb 22, 7.30pm.

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