Trio Mediaeval

Trio Mediæval distinguishes itself through an exceptionally lucid and concentrated sound produced by three voices locked in precise alignment, generating what resembles an otherworldly spectrum of tones. Founded in Oslo during 1997 by Linn Andrea Fuglseth from Sandefjord, Norway, together with Anna Maria Friman from Goteborg, Sweden, and schoolteacher Torunn Ostrem Ossum from Namsos, Norway, the ensemble emerged from their shared participation in the choir Grex Vocalis, which Carl Hogset conducted. Within the group, Ostrem Ossum quickly stood out as the voice providing the foundational support through her mezzo-soprano register.

The three singers committed to intensive professional-level rehearsal by attending a summer course run by the Hilliard Ensemble. Encouraged by that ensemble’s input and support, the Trio began charting an independent course. Their skill in blending early and contemporary repertoire stems directly from the guidance of Hilliard member John Potter as well as Linda Hirst, a key figure in the Swingle Singers who, in 1983, recorded the feminist anthem “Women of the World” with Scottish poet Ivor Cutler. Hirst’s own background spans Monteverdi and Schoenberg while encompassing the flexibility required for pieces by Luciano Berio, Giacinto Scelsi, and György Ligeti. Fuglseth pursued studies in Baroque performance and received personal coaching from lyric soprano Emma Kirkby. Ostrem Ossum trained under Svein Bjørkøy at Ronningen County College in Oslo. Friman, whose research examined contemporary performances of medieval music by women, worked with Thorbjørn Lindhjem and lyric soprano Barbara Bonney.

From the outset the Trio has sought to recover and reassess the historically overlooked contributions of women to medieval musical traditions while commissioning new pieces from composers worldwide. Their closest forerunners include the Anonymous 4, a similarly accomplished female quartet focused on medieval and Renaissance repertory whose first recording, An English Ladymass, appeared in 1992 on Harmonia Mundi. While the Anonymous 4 catalog offers an extensive survey of early traditions, among them works by Hildegard von Bingen, the Trio’s method proves more inventively expansive than most historically informed approaches, because they extend their practice well beyond conventional boundaries.

These qualities made the ensemble a natural fit for the ECM roster, and John Potter facilitated their introduction to founder and producer Manfred Eicher. Their debut album, Words of the Angel, was captured in Gonningen, 65 km south of Stuttgart, Germany, in December 1999 and reached the Billboard classical Top Ten after its 2001 release. Saturated with 14th-century polyphony, the collection draws on anonymous sources from various English locales, Belgium’s oldest city Tournai, and Cortona, situated between Siena and Perugia in central Italy. The sole modern item, the title track “Words of the Angel,” was composed by British musician Ivan Moody. The cover image, a still from Jean Luc Godard’s Histoire(s) du Cinema, creates potential confusion because the Trio’s second release shares its title with one of Godard’s textual overlays, “Soir, dit-elle.” (ECM issued the Histoire(s) du Cinema soundtrack as a five-CD set in 1999.)

Captured in April 2003 and issued the following year, Soir, Dit-Elle marked the first of several Trio Mediæval projects recorded at Propstei St. Gerold, a Benedictine monastery in the Austrian Alps where the Hilliard Ensemble had worked with saxophonist Jan Garbarek in 1993. The album pairs a devotional work by 15th-century English composer Leonel Power with late-20th-century pieces by Gavin Bryars, Andrew Smith, Oleh Harkavyy, and again Ivan Moody. Stella Maris, recorded in February 2005 and released shortly afterward, features John Potter’s voice on the title track and juxtaposes 13th-century material with a five-part mass written for the Trio by contemporary Korean composer Sungji Hong. Folk Songs, taped in February 2007, departed from earlier textures by prominently featuring traditional Norwegian drummer and jaw harpist Birger Mistereggen in a program uniting medieval ballads and lullabies with Norwegian airs and dances. The recording received a Grammy nomination and, like Stella Maris, entered Billboard’s classical Top Ten.

The Trio’s integration of early and modern sources parallels John Potter’s own ECM projects, notably The Dowland Project with John Surman, Milos Valent, and Stephen Stubbs (2008) and Being Dufay (2009), an electronically augmented collaboration with composer Ambrose Field. Torunn Ostrem Ossum appears on Draumkvedet (The Dream Ballad), a 2006 release by Norwegian electronic jazz artist Arne Nordheim. At the 2009 West Cork Chamber Music Festival the Trio performed with trumpeter Arve Henriksen, who had included them on his 2008 album Cartography, and percussionist Terje Isungset. In addition to regular tours across Northern Europe, Scandinavia, and the U.K., the group appears frequently throughout the United States. Their contemporary work encompasses multiple projects with composers Julia Wolfe, Michael Gordon, and David Lang, as well as the Bang on a Can All-Stars; in November 2009 the artists joined at Carnegie Hall for Wolfe’s Steel Hammer, inspired by the legend of John Henry.

In 2011 the Trio issued A Worcester Ladymass, an ambitious undertaking supervised by Manfred Eicher and shaped by music editor Nicky Losseff, who reconstructed fragments and partial manuscripts from the 13th and 14th centuries housed at Worcester Cathedral in western England. The album also incorporates contributions from composer and medieval lauda specialist Gavin Bryars. That same year Friman sang as one of four vocalists on Moby’s 2011 Mute Records release Destroyed. The Trio returned to Eicher and ECM for 2014’s Aquilonis. A year later they joined Garth Knox, Sylvain Lemêtre, and Agnès Vesterman for 2015’s Song of Songs. In 2017 they collaborated once more with trumpeter Henriksen on the ECM recording Rímur.