NEW MUSIC FOR MALE CHOIR

“Something New”, the recent release by Christiania Mannskor, is nothing less than history’s first CD recording of new Norwegian music for male choir. The works on the CD were written over the last 40 years and reflect the desire of Christiania Mannskor to renew the male choir repertoire and make it more easily accessible for more singers, both in Oslo and throughout the country. The recording presents music spanning a broad range: from melodious Gregorianinspired hymns via innovative choir sounds based on the best of the Norwegian choral tradition to a more modern, instrumental means of expression. The CD features works of Norwegian composers Jon Mostad, Bjorn Kruse, Henrik Odegaard, Kjell Habbestad, Wolfgang Plagge, Knut Nystedt, Carl-Andreas Nass and Kjell Mork, with texts by William Shakespeare, Rolf Jacobsen, and Henrik Ibsen, among others.

Christiania Mannskor was founded in 2009 and comprises both professional and semi-professional singers under the leadership of conductor Marius Skjolaas. In close association with the country’s leading composers, it is spearheading the effort to revitalize the male choir tradition in Norway. The choir has performed at the Nobel Peace Prize dinner and special occasions arranged by the Norwegian Government and Parliament. “Something New” is the first in a series of four recordings on the LAWO Classics label in which the titles allude to the traditional good-luck rhyme “Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue.”

Conductor Marius Skjolaas studied church music with a major in choral conducting at the Norwegian Academy of Music. He serves as organist and choirmaster of the Church of the Holy Trinity in Oslo and is artistic director of the chamber choir Oslo Chorale Selskap.

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