Billuca Ensemble
WILDFLOWERS TALES
Billuca ensemble released their third album, wildflower tales, March 17.
twelve brilliant music tales recomposed and played by a norwegian classical/folk music crossover project.
Release: March 17. 2017
What happens when a Norwegian lullaby is mixed into de Falla’s classical song, Nana? Or when Purcell is mixed with Balkan rhythms, Brahms is played in shanty style, Grieg is mixed with both a herding call and the Bossa Nova, or when a fiery Italian baroque aria meets a traditional, Norwegian bachelor song? New tales arise from the good, old stories.
On this album Billuca Ensemble revels in a folkloristic remix of classical works. Since the ensemble was established in Trondheim, Norway, in 2003, the Billuca musicians have developed their own way of crossing chamber music from different centuries and genres from the 1500s to the present. This time the music of Monteverdi, Sartori, Purcell, Bach, Händel, Schumann, Brahms, Grieg, de Falla and Frode Dyrli Angelsen, is combined freely with Norwegian, English and Irish folk music. The classical wildflowers are specially arranged and recomposed for Billuca by the ensemble’s own composers and arrangers, Tone Sand, Frode Dyrli Angelsen and Martin Smidt.
This repertoire was first presented in Norway in springtime 2016, and then on a concert tour in Piedmont, Italy, the following summer in a Norway/Italy-collaboration set up by the Italian Embassy in Norway. Our Italian audience then asked for a recording of the music – and here it is: The third Billuca album.
Musicians:
Hege Stokstad - soprano vocals
Kristina Olsen Smidt - soprano vocals
Tone Sand - flutes
Guri Krog Dodig - viola
Anne Lise Fagerli - cello
Frode Angelsen - guitars
Martin Smidt - drums and percussion
“Here’s a most engaging and original reworking of largely familiar material (...) hugely catchy and enjoyable (…) I have repeatedly played it with much pleasure.”
“Dette er både morsomt og sjangersprengende - inviter mer enn gjerne Billuca Ensemble inn i varmen”
PRODUCTION
Recorded at Øra Studio, Trondheim (NO), October 2016
Produced by Jo Ranheim and Billuca Ensemble
Engineered and mixed by Jo Ranheim, Øra Studio
Mastered by Karl Klaseie at Greener Mastering, Trondheim (NO)
Cover design and collage by Thomas Nikolai Olsen
Inlet Photos by Cathrine Diller Hagen and Kristian Wanvik