CARNEGIE HALL PRESENTS
Bang on a Can All-Stars
Trio Mediaeval
Julia Wolfe: Steel Hammer

Zankel Hall
Saturday, November 21st, 2009 at 7:30 PM

Pre-concert talk starts at 6:30 PM in Zankel Hall: Julia Wolfe in conversation with John Schaefer, Host of WNYC’s Soundcheck and New Sounds.

Bang on a Can All-Stars
·· Ashley Bathgate, Cello
·· Robert Black, Bass
·· David Cossin, Percussion
·· David Friend, Piano
·· Mark Stewart, Electric Guitar
·· Evan Ziporyn, Clarinets
·· Jody Elff, Sound Engineer
·· Jim Findlay, Scenic Designer
Trio Mediaeval
·· Anna Maria Friman
·· Linn Andrea Fuglseth
·· Torunn Østrem Ossum

JULIA WOLFE Steel Hammer (NY Premiere, commissioned by Bang on a Can with generous support from Maria and Robert A. Skirnick and Carnegie Hall)

Program is approximately 1 hour, 15 minutes, and will be performed without intermission

This tour of Bang on a Can All-Stars is made possible by a grant from Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts Regional Touring Program.

Program Notes:

IN THE COMPOSER’S OWN WORDS: Julia Wolfe

Steel Hammer is inspired by my love for the legends and music of Appalachia. The text is culled from the over 200 versions of the John Henry ballad. The various versions—based on hearsay, recollection, and tall tales—explore the subject of human-verses-machine in this quintessential American legend. Many of the facts are unclear; some say John Henry is from West Virginia, others say he’s from South Carolina, still others say he’s from New Jersey. But these ambiguities aside, Henry, wielding a steel hammer, faces the onslaught of the Industrial Age as his superhuman strength is challenged in a contest to out-dig an engine. I drew upon the extreme variations of the story, fragmenting and weaving the contradictory versions of the ballad that have circulated since the late 1800s into a new whole—at times meditating on single words or phrases—to tell the story of the story, and to embody the simultaneous diverse paths it traveled.

The sounds of Appalachia have long been a part of my musical consciousness. (My first public music performance was on the mountain dulcimer.) I have referenced the folk influence in many of my other works, such as Four Marys (for string quartet) and Cruel Sister (for string orchestra), which are inspired by folktales, and LAD (for nine bagpipes) and Accordion Love (an accordion concerto), which explore and experiment with folk performance traditions. In Steel Hammer, I call on the Bang on a Can All-Stars to expand their usual instrumentation to include the likes of dulcimers and bones, and access Trio Mediaeval’s extensive work in their native vocal traditions.


THE PROGRAM

JULIA WOLFE (b. 1958)
Steel Hammer (New York Premiere, commissioned by Bang on a Can with generous support from Maria and Robert A. Skirnick and Carnegie Hall)


About the Composer

Drawing inspiration from rock, folk, and classical genres, Julia Wolfe’s music brings a modern sensibility to each while simultaneously tearing down the walls between them. Wolfe’s music is distinguished by an intense physicality and a relentless power that pushes performers to extremes and demands attention from the audience.

Wolfe has written a major body of work for strings, with pieces commissioned by the Lark, Ethel, Kronos, and Cassatt quartets. Three of her quartets—Dig Deep, Four Marys, 30-minute Cruel Sister for string orchestra, inspired by a traditional English ballad of a love rivalry between sisters, was commissioned by the Munich Chamber Orchestra and received its US premiere at the Spoleto Festival. Her virtuosic eight-bass work Stronghold, written for Robert Black, ventures into the extreme stratosphere of the instrument.

My Beautiful Scream was written for Kronos Quartet and the Orchestre Radio France; it was premiered in the US at the Cabrillo Festival under the direction of Marin Alsop. The work was inspired by the image of a slow motion scream and was written shortly after September 11, 2001. The Vermeer Room, Girlfriend, and Window of Vulnerability, are other examples of Wolfe’s ability to induce vivid sonic images.

The influence of pop culture can be heard in two of Wolfe’s works for the Bang on a Can All-Stars: Lick and Believing. Lick, based on fragments of funk, has become a manifesto for the new generation of genre-crossing composers. The raucous my lips from speaking for six pianos, was inspired by the opening riff of the Aretha Franklin tune "Think."

Julia Wolfe’s music has been heard at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Sydney Olympic Arts Festival, Settembre Musica (Italy), Théâtre de la Ville (Paris), Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall. Her work has been recorded on Cantaloupe, Teldec, Universal, Sony Classical, and Argo/Decca. Wolfe has been a recipient of numerous grants, including awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Foundation for Contemporary Performance Art, and a Fulbright to the Netherlands. She holds degrees from the University of Michigan, Yale, and Princeton. Wolfe recently joined the NYU Steinhardt School’s composition faculty.

A composer of uncommon range, Julia Wolfe has welcomed a variety of musical interests into her work. A maverick attitude towards music led her to found, along with composers David Lang and Michael Gordon, the collective Bang on a Can, which upended many ideas on how new music should be presented and embraced countless influences. Her new work, Steel Hammer, explores the myth and legend of a seminal figure in America’s folklore: John Henry. Welcoming the sounds of Appalachia into her work, as well as the countless and contradictory songs and tales of the mythic man wielding the steel hammer, Wolfe again displays her eclectic and inquisitive spirit.


About the Work

Myth, allegory, and just plain hearsay are primary mechanisms for understanding who we are, where we come from, and how we relate to the surrounding world. Though America’s history is shorter than that of most other countries or cultures in the world, there is no lack of mythological beings, both godlike and mortal swirling around in its collective consciousness. Some of these people and tales are true, others complete fabrication; the most remarkable live somewhere in between. This last group never fails to captivate since part of the mystery comes from blurring the lines between truth and myth—the fog obscuring the view of which foot is planted firmly on the ground and which one is in the air.

John Henry, the steel drivin’ man at the heart of Wolfe’s new work, happily resides somewhere within that historical mist. The basic story—there are too many variations to keep track—is that Henry was a former slave who worked for the rapidly expanding railroad empire in the late 1800s. A giant among men, he supposedly weighed 33 pounds at birth. He worked with a large steel hammer, driving holes into the mountain ranges of West Virginia that were then filled with dynamite to allow tunnels to be blasted through the earth to make way for the rail. One day, the railroad’s owner brought in a steam-powered hammer to replace the workers, claiming its modern efficiency would out-drill any man. John Henry took the challenge and defeated the machine. The strain, however, caused him to collapse and die with hardly a moment to enjoy his victory.

The story has captured the minds of people for years. There are literally hundreds of songs and ballads about John Henry, many of which find their way, at least partially, into Wolfe’s piece. He has been the focus of novels, films, and even postage stamps. Railway historian Roy C. Long, attempting to uncover the truths at the root of steel-hammered story, discovered that there were numerous tunnels named Big Bend (the supposed site of the tall tale) along the railroads winding through West Virginia. What is more, there were countless African American men named John Henry employed by the rail company building the tunnels. He’s even gone to far as to pinpoint Talcott, West Virginia, as the site since there was a Big Bend Tunnel, a man named John Henry, and a steam-powered drill there all at the same moment in time.

Whether truth or fiction, the song’s precise roots are equally hard to pin down. It certainly began as a work song among the steel-driving men in Appalachia. It has since spread through the popular music circles of America with singers as diverse as Woody Guthrie, The Supremes, Johnny Cash, and Bruce Springsteen each having crooned the tall tale. Having traveled through so many divergent paths, the story and the songs seem to find resonance with nearly everyone they come into contact with: There is the plight of the working man, the battle of man versus the Industrial Age, and the recently-freed slaves searching to stake a claim in a rapidly shifting nation. The final touch on the story—his death from exhaustion after defeating the machine—adds a darker note to the triumph of the underdog. The battle was won, but the tale also points to man’s inability to stop the behemoth of the industry and technology in America, which continues to sweep people up in its efficiency and in its chaos.

—John Glover

© 2009 The Carnegie Hall Corporation

More Information:

An extraordinary meeting of musical minds, as an evocative Scandinavian vocal trio joins the hard-driving Bang on a Can All-Stars. The new work they perform is based on Appalachian folklore, and retells—with tremendous power—the legendary tale of John Henry, the rail worker who refused to be replaced by a machine.

Bang on a Can All-Stars
·· Ashley Bathgate, Cello
·· Robert Black, Bass
·· David Cossin, Percussion
·· David Friend, Piano
·· Mark Stewart, Electric Guitar
·· Evan Ziporyn, Clarinets
·· Jody Elff, Sound Engineer
·· Jim Findlay, Scenic Designer
THE ARTISTS

BANG ON A CAN ALL-STARS

Formed in 1987, Bang on a Can is an organization that is dedicated to commissioning, performing, creating, presenting, and recording contemporary music. Its founders—Michael Gordon, David Lang, and Julie Wolfe—recognized early on that their new and open approach to presenting music required new and open performers—a generation of virtuosic and passionate musicians who could cross boundaries and adapt to many styles and technologies. The three assembled a core of such exciting players and in 1992, formed Bang on a Can All-Stars.

The Bang on a Can All-Stars’ instrumentation shows the aesthetics for which the ensemble was designed. Clarinets, cello, keyboard, electric guitar, bass, and drums—part rock band, part amplified chamber group. Constructed specifically to blur the lines between classical and pop ensembles, the lineup was chosen to give voice to a huge range of music and styles, its players having musical backgrounds and abilities to match. Each player is completely at home with new music, but has delved into other areas as well; members have collaborated with Yo-Yo Ma, and toured with Paul Simon and Bob Dylan. With their extensive experience, the Bang on a Can All-Stars create an intense, hard-rocking approach to performance that is unmatched.

The All-Stars work with artists who are equally passionate, fierce, adventuresome, and dedicated. Among those with whom the ensemble has collaborated are Burmese circle-drum master Kyaw Kyaw Naing, Czech composer-singer-violinist Iva Bittová, post-jazz virtuoso Don Byron, and avant-garde rock giants Lee Ranaldo (of Sonic Youth) and Glenn Kotche (of Wilco). Through their work with other performers, the All-Stars test boundaries, tearing down walls and building anew.

Most recently, the All-Stars opened the 2009 Manchester Festival with the world premiere of Steve Reich’s 2x5, sharing the bill with legendary German electronica pioneers Kraftwerk. They were also presented by Cal Performances / UC Berkeley in the premiere of Evan Ziporyn’s A House in Bali, a new dance-opera that features Balinese gamelan. New projects this season include commissions from Louis Andriessen, Bill Frisell, and Ryuichi Sakamoto, among others.

The Bang on a Can All-Stars record for the Cantaloupe Music label, and have previously released recordings on Sony, Universal, and Nonesuch. Please visit bangonacan.org for more information.

Ashley Bathgate
Born in 1985, American cellist Ashley Bathgate has appeared at the Saratoga Chamber Music Festival, Barge Music, Windham Chamber Music Festival, the Pleshakov Music Center, and the Moulin d’Andé in Normandy (France). She made her New York debut in Weill Recital Hall with pianist Todd Crow in 2008, and has been a featured artist on WMHT–FM and WQXR’s Young Artist Showcase.

Invited frequently to perform with orchestras, Ms. Bathgate has been a soloist with the Lake Placid Sinfonietta, Woodstock Chamber Orchestra, Windham Chamber Players, and the American Symphony Orchestra under Leon Botstein. She recently appeared with the Greater Newburgh Symphony Orchestra and the Yale Philharmonia.

Ms. Bathgate performs regularly in benefit concerts and chamber music recitals worldwide, and has worked with such artists as pianist Pascal Rogé and violinist Chantal Juillet. A champion of new music, she has performed works by John Adams, Martin Bresnick, Michael Gordon, and David Lang.

A full-scholarship student at Bard College, where she studied cello with Luis Garcia-Rènart and composition with Joan Tower, Ms. Bathgate received her master’s degree and artist diploma from Yale University School of Music. At Yale, she was awarded the Aldo Parisot Prize, and studied with the likes of Ezra Laderman, Claude Frank, Boris Berman, Peter Frankl, and Ani Kavafian. She was also a member of the acclaimed Yale Cellos ensemble.

Among her awards are a grant from the New York Philharmonic Players Fund, sponsored by Stephen and Elaine Stamas, and top prizes in the Lois Lyman Concerto Competition, 2006 Hugo Kauder Memorial Music Competition, and the 2008 Woolsey Hall Concerto Competition (Yale). As a member of the Lorien Trio, she recently received the Bronze Medal at the 2009 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition.

Robert Black
Bassist Robert Black’s interests range from traditional orchestral and chamber music to solo recitals, collaborations with actors, music with computers, movement-based improvisations with dancers, and live action-painting performances with artists. He has commissioned, collaborated, or performed with such musicians as John Cage, D. J. Spooky, Elliott Carter, Meredith Monk, Cecil Taylor, and Paquito d’Rivera, as well as many young emerging composers. His recital activities frequently take him to five continents, and major festivals in Japan, Brazil, Colombia, Finland, and Estonia. He has been heard on numerous radio and television broadcasts worldwide, and was an artist-in-residence at the American Center in Paris, Studio P.A.S.S. in New York City, and the Banff Centre.

Additional chamber music activities include performances with the Ciompi and Miami string quartets. He recently created and performed the music for Kathryn Walker’s production of The Odyssey at the Music Theater Group, and with the Full Force Dance Company’s Time On Our Hands. Other collaborations include films by Rudy Burckhardt and live action-painting improvisations with Brazilian painter Ige D'Aquino.

Mr. Black appears annually at the Monadnock and Moab music festivals, among others. He also performs with the Hartford Symphony and the Monadnock Festival Orchestra, teaches at University of Hartford’s Hartt School and the Festival Eleazar de Carvalho (Brazil).

A member of Manhattan School of Music’s Contemporary Performance Program, Mr. Black is a recipient of numerous grants, including the 1998 Bessie Award for his collaborative work with The School of Hard Knocks in New York City. He has released solo CDs of music by Christian Wolff and Giacinto Scelsi, and recorded for Sony Classical, Point/Polygram, and Koch International, among many others.

Mr. Black joined the International Society of Bassists Board of Directors in 2001. He is also the editor of the “New Score” column in the journal Bass World, a frequent adjudicator for the Concert Artists Guild Competition in New York City, and serves on the Advisory Board for the international radio program, Art of the States.

David Cossin
A specialist in new and experimental music, percussionist David Cossin has worked across a broad spectrum of musical and artistic forms to incorporate new media with percussion. He has recorded and performed internationally with such composers and ensembles as the Bang on a Can All-Stars, Steve Reich and Musicians, Philip Glass, Yo-Yo Ma, Meredith Monk, Tan Dun, Cecil Taylor, Talujon Percussion Quartet, and the trio Real Quiet. His numerous theater projects include collaborations with Blue Man Group, Mabou Mines, and director Peter Sellars.

Mr. Cossin was featured as the percussion soloist in Tan Dun’s Grammy- and Oscar-winning score to Ang Lee’s film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. He has performed as a soloist with orchestras worldwide, including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Orchestre Radio France, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, São Paulo State Symphony, Sydney Symphony, Göteborgs Symfoniker, Hong Kong Symphony, and Singapore Symphony.

Mr. Cossin’s ventures into other art forms include sonic installations that have been presented in New York, Italy, and Germany. An active composer, he has invented several instruments that expand the limits of traditional percussion.

Mr. Cossin is the curator for the Sound Res Festival, an experimental music festival in southern Italy, and teaches percussion at Queens College in New York City.

David Friend
Among New York City’s most adventurous young pianists, David Friend has performed in sound installations, multimedia collaborations, and rock venues. Recent performances include those with the Juilliard Percussion Ensemble in a sold-out concert at Lincoln Center, a recital of Frederic Rzewski’s theatrical masterpiece De Profundis at Riverside Church, and a concert with the Conservatory Project at the Kennedy Center.

Passionate about contemporary music, Mr. Friend has worked with such established and emerging composers as Charles Wuorinen and David Lang, and students at Manhattan School of Music, Aspen Music Festival, and the Bang on a Can Summer Residency. In celebration of the Messiaen centennial, Mr. Friend was featured as soloist in Oiseaux exotiques in Aspen’s Benedict Music Tent last summer. He was also the soloist in the New York premiere of Lowell Liebermann’s Concerto No. 1.

With an abiding interest in pushing the boundaries of musical performance, Mr. Friend has mounted numerous multimedia productions, most notably with innovative dance-theater troupe dance imprints. At Bang on a Can’s Summer Residency, he played with genre-busting musicians Don Byron and Iva Bittová. Mr. Friend is also a founding member of TRANSIT, a Brooklyn-based new-music collective.

Upcoming concerts include those for Issue Project Room and the MATA festival, with TRANSIT, in addition to solo engagements and the pilot of a new workshop for young pianists on extended technique and contemporary programming at McNeese State University in Louisiana.

Mark Stewart
Multi-instrumentalist, singer, composer, and instrument designer Mark Stewart (electric guitar) has been heard worldwide performing old and new music. Since 1998, he has recorded, toured, and served as Paul Simon’s musical director. A founding member of the Bang on a Can All-Stars, Mr. Stewart is also a member of Steve Reich and Musicians, the Fred Frith Guitar Quartet, Arnold Dreyblatt's Orchestra of Excited Strings, Zeena Parkins's Gangster Band, and the manic duo Polygraph Lounge with keyboard and theremin wizard Rob Schwimmer.

Mr. Stewart has worked with Anthony Braxton, Bob Dylan, Charles Wourinen, Cecil Taylor, Meredith Monk, Stevie Wonder, Phillip Glass, Hugh Masakela, Iva Bittová, Bruce Springsteen, Bobby McFerrin, Ornette Coleman, the New York Philharmonic, Edie Brickell, Don Byron, Paul McCartney, the Everly Brothers, Alison Krauss, David Byrne, James Taylor, The Roches, Marc Ribot, and Simon & Garfunkel. He has also collaborated with choreographers Eliot Feld, Susan Marshall, and Yoshiko Chuma, and worked extensively with composer Elliot Goldenthal on music for the feature films The Tempest, Across the Universe, Titus, The Butcher Boy, The Good Thief, In Dreams, and Heat, often playing instruments of his own design and construction.

Mr. Stewart’s Lower East Side “lab” in New York City is home to an instrument workshop and sonic salon, which houses traditional, neglected, and original instruments. He can be heard on Warner Brothers, Sony, Sony Classical, Point/Polygram, Nonesuch, Label Bleu, Resonance Magnetique, Cantaloupe, and CRI recordings.

Evan Ziporyn
Clarinetist Evan Ziporyn has toured the globe with the Bang on a Can All-Stars since 1992. He is also Founder and Artistic Director of Gamelan Galak Tika, a Boston-based Balinese music and dance troupe devoted to new works by American and Balinese composers. With Galak Tika, he has presented his groundbreaking Balinese-Western fusion works in venues as diverse as New York's Zankel Hall and the Balinese International Arts Festival.

Mr. Ziporyn is the recipient of the 2007 USA Artists Walker Fellowship and the 2004 American Academy of Arts and Letters Goddard Lieberson Award. His music has been commissioned and performed by Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road Project, Kronos Quartet, Wu Man, American Composers Orchestra, American Repertory Theater (their acclaimed Oedipus Rex of 2004), Maya Beiser, and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, with whom he recorded his 2006 orchestral CD, Frog's Eye. His works have been released on Cantaloupe, Sony Classical, New Albion, New World, Koch, Innova, and CRI; his 2001 solo clarinet CD, This Is Not a Clarinet, made numerous top-10 lists, and was featured on All Things Considered and PRI’s The World. He has also recorded for Nonesuch (Steve Reich's New York Counterpoint and the Grammy Award–winning Music for 18 Musicians), Thirsty Ear, and Point.

Mr. Ziporyn has also provided the soundtrack for the PBS film Tailenders, and his playing was featured in Tan Dun's soundtrack for the film Fallen. With the All-Stars, a partial list of collaborators includes Brian Eno, Ornette Coleman, Thurston Moore, Meredith Monk, Iva Bittová, Philip Glass, Terry Riley, Don Byron, Louis Andriessen, Cecil Taylor, Henry Threadgill, Wayan Wija, Kyaw Kyaw Naing, and Pamela Z. He has also recorded with Paul Simon, Matthew Shipp, So Percussion, and Ethel.

The Kenan Sahin Distinguished Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Mr. Zipoyrn has two children, Leo (age 14) and Ava (age 7). His opera, A House in Bali, featuring the All-Stars and a full Balinese gamelan, was recently premiered in Bali and Berkeley.

Jody Elff
Jody Elff (sound engineer) is an audio engineer, sound artist, musician, and composer. Mr. Elff has had the pleasure of working in some of the most unusual musical and sonic environments imaginable. He has worked with Laurie Anderson, Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road Ensemble, Paul Winter, Hall & Oates, Paul Simon, and many others. In addition, he has mixed countless televised concert events.

Mr. Elf scored the feature-length film All the Wrong Places, and is the resident sound designer for the National Theater of the United States of America. His work with sonic environments has led him to develop a series of sound art works that have been presented at international museums and galleries. In 2002, he was commissioned to create a permanent sound art installation for a public parking garage in Lyon, France, which opened in October 2004.

James Findlay
James Findlay (scenic designer) works across multiple specialties as a designer, director, performer, and creator with a constellation of theater, performance, and music groups in New York City. He is a founding member and primary collaborator in both the experimentally groundbreaking Collapsable Giraffe and the successful music-media performance ensemble Accinosco / Cynthia Hopkins. Mr. Findlay has also been an associate member of The Wooster Group since 1994. He also frequently works with Ridge Theater, most recently designing Lightning at Our Feet at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Other notable designs include Success of Failure by Cynthia Hopkins at St. Ann's Warehouse (Brooklyn), Saving the Princess by choreographer Ralph Lemon at the Lyon Opera, and Slug Bearers of Kayrol Island at the Vineyard Theater.

Mr. Findlay's awards include the Henry Hewes Design Award, Lucille Lortel Award, Princess Grace Award, Obie Awards in 2001 and 2008, and Bessie Awards in 1999 and 2008.

Joshua Higgason
Joshua Higgason—technical director and assistant designer—is a creator and builder of multimedia theater productions. He is the technical director for and tours with The Builders Association and Latitude 14. He has designed video and audio at HERE, The Atlantic, Edinburgh Festival Fringe, The Public, The Flea, Manhattan Theatre Club, and others. He has designed lights for NYCLU, Billy the Mime, and numerous theater shows and concerts.

Trio Mediaeval
·· Anna Maria Friman
·· Linn Andrea Fuglseth
·· Torunn Østrem Ossum
TRIO MEDIAEVAL

The mesmerizing voices of Oslo's Trio Mediaeval have captivated concertgoers worldwide. The trio’s recordings cover such diverse polyphonic repertoire as medieval music from England and France, contemporary works written for the ensemble, and traditional Norwegian ballads and songs.

Founded in 1997, the Grammy nominated Trio Mediaeval developed its unique repertory during intense periods of work at the Hilliard summer festivals in England and Germany between 1998 and 2000, and subsequently with Linda Hirst and John Potter. In 2003, the trio made its US debut, performing two sold-out concerts at New Haven's International Festival of Arts and Ideas. Since then, the trio has embarked on multiple North American tours, highlights of which have included appearances at Carnegie’s Weill Recital Hall, Brooklyn Academy of Music, the National Cathedral, Kennedy Center, and Spivey Hall, as well as engagements with San Francisco Performances, and airtime on American Public Media's Saint Paul Sunday and Performance Today.

The trio delights in performing new music and collaborates with a multitude of composers, including Gavin Bryars, Piers Hellawell, Roger Marsh, Ivan Moody, Paul Robinson, Thomas Simaku, Oleh Harkavyy, Bjørn Kruse, and Andrew Smith. In a joint production with Bang on a Can composers Michael Gordon, Julia Wolfe, and David Lang; new-music ensemble musikFabrik; and Ridge Theater, the trio premiered Shelter in Cologne, Germany. The work received its US premiere at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

Trio Mediaeval performs throughout Europe, giving concerts and radio broadcasts in Austria, Belgium, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Norway, Spain, Sweden, the Netherlands, and the UK, in such venues as the Oslo Konserhus, Konzerthaus (Vienna), and Wigmore Hall, as well as at numerous festivals.

Trio Mediaeval has released four albums on ECM Records. Their first, Words of the Angel, immediately hit Billboard's “Top 10 Bestsellers” list and was the Stereophile’s “Recording of the Month” in April 2002. Soir, dit-elle (2004)—featuring Leonel Power's Missa Alma Redemptoris Mater alongside works by Gavin Bryars, Andrew Smith, and Ivan Moody—received similar critical and commercial success. The trio's third recording, Stella Maris (2005), features 12th- and 13th-century music from England and France, as well as the world premiere recording of Sungji Hong’s Missa Lumen de Lumine. Its latest release—Folk Songs, an intimate collection of Norwegian folk songs that feature traditional percussion instruments—put the group back on the Billboard charts and received a 2008 Grammy nomination for "Best Chamber Music Performance."

Anna Maria Friman
Born in Gothenburg, Sweden, Anna Maria Friman studied with Thorbjørn Lindhjem at the Barratt Due Institute of Music in Oslo and with Linda Hirst at Trinity College of Music in London; she is currently pursuing a PhD at the University of York, where she is researching the modern performance of medieval music. During the last six years, she has coaching singers and vocal ensembles at the university. In Europe, Ms. Friman has given workshops in the UK Sweden, Latvia, and Finland. Her work in the US has included coaching and recording with the Girl Choristers of the National Cathedral.

Ms. Friman’s solo engagements include performances with Gavin Bryars Ensemble, Red Byrd, Ciconia Ensemble, Norwegian Soloists' Choir, NYYD Ensemble, Latvian Radio Choir, Collegium Vocale Gent, and Ricercar Consort. She has been a jury member at the vocal ensemble competition at the Tampere International Choral Festival (Finland) since 2001. This spring, she performed in the Sonnets Project’s Nothing Like the Sun (a collaboration between RSC and Opera North). The project had its premier at the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford Upon-Avon in February, and thereafter toured extensively in the UK.

Linn Andrea Fuglseth
Linn Andrea Fuglseth was born in Sandefjord, Norway. She completed her Higher Diploma in singing at the Norwegian Academy of Music in 1997, specializing in Baroque interpretation and writing a dissertation on Restoration mad songs. In 1994–1995, she studied at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama in London, receiving a diploma in advanced solo studies in early music. Ms. Fuglseth has studied singing with Marit Isene, Barbro Marklund, Emma Kirkby, and Mary Nichols.

Ms. Fuglseth has been a soloist with, among others, the Stavanger Symfoniorkester, Norsk Barokkorkester, and the Norwegian Soloists' Choir. She founded Trio Mediaeval in October 1997. In addition to singing, she conducts a children's choir in Oslo and writes arrangements of Norwegian folksongs for the trio.

Torunn Østrem Ossum
Torunn Østrem Ossum was born in Namsos, Norway. She was educated at the College of Early Childhood Education in Oslo, specializing in music and drama, and studied singing with Svein Bjørkøy at Rønningen County College in Oslo. Ms. Ossum has wide experience as an ensemble singer and has performed with groups such as the Norwegian Soloists' Choir, Nordic Voices, Con Spirito, and Grex Vocalis (conducted by Carl Høgset), in which she also sings as a soloist.

Ms. Ossum has been working as a vocal coach for the junior theater group Baermuda mini. Her experience working with children has also been a great advantage for the trio, which performs at schools through the Norwegian Concert Institute.