CRYSTALLINE - piano music by Karen Tanaka

A GLITTERING WORLD OF SOUND - Karen Tanaka is one of the leading Japanese composers of her generation. The purity of sound, the sensuality and intensity in her music has gained her a large audience, and the release of this recording will make much of Tanaka's piano composition available on one album. Pianist Signe Bakke gives us an interesting overview of the complexity and yet the integrity of Tanaka's music as it has evolved through the twenty years of her career that this disc covers: Crystalline, Water Dance, Northern Lights, Lavender Field, Techno Etudes, Children of Light (Excerpts) and Crystalline II.

Stereo + 5.1 surround Hybrid SACD
Produced in DXD (24bit/352.8kHz) by Lindberg Lyd, Norway

Release Europe and Asia: March 2011 (EAN 7041888515524)
Release USA and Canada: April 2011 (UPC 845829000745)

STRID

For 25 years the Oslo Chamber Choir has delved into the soloist tradition of Norwegian folk song, thus creating a very specific expression as a choir. When classical music by Rachmaninov, Tchaikovsky and Bruckner are combined with religious folk tunes the result is a novel contemporary expression, where two very different melodies, singing techniques and texts are juxtaposed. The STRUGGLE that arises reveal new dimentions of music. This surround sound recording retains the intimacy of the performance and the enveloping atmosphere that arises when the choir surrounds its audience, each member of the choir singing the old religious tunes directly to each member of the audience. The purpose of combining the intimacy of religious folk music with the complexities of larger religious classical choral pieces is to highlight the universality of the hymns, and the simple sincerity of classical music, finding the common ground between two musical cultures.

Stereo + 5.0 surround Hybrid SACD
Produced in DXD (24bit/352.8kHz) by Lindberg Lyd, Norway

Release Europe and Asia: March 2011 (EAN 7041888515425)
Release USA and Canada: April 2011 (UPC 845829000738)

PSALLAT ECCLESIA – Medieval Norwegian sequences performed by Schola Solensis

What we call Gregorian chant is old music. By the 13th century most of it was already composed. It is the church's oldest musical treasure, and is the word of God spoken, and prayers prayed, in a language where the word is lifted and born on wings of exquisite beauty. It is not just a language of words, but a meeting of words and melody in an expression of extraordinary power. Gregorian chant developed over a long period of oral transmission from generation to generation. If there is an evolutionary theory for artistic expression, a sort of "survival of the fittest", it can certainly be used about Gregorian chant. Many of these melodies are so unbelievably beautiful; it is as if we sense divine participation in their creation. There is an air of mysticism in this music, which more and more people are seeking as a setting for meditation and prayer.

Stereo + 5.0 surround Hybrid SACD
Produced in DXD (24bit/352.8kHz) by Lindberg Lyd, Norway

Release Europe and Asia: March 2011 (EAN 7041888515128)
Release USA and Canada: April 2011 (UPC 845829000707)