Trachea, the windpipe. A source of transformation where the breath of a human being can be refined into the most beautiful, powerful, tender art. The voice is humankind’s primeval instrument, plumbing the greatest depths of our emotional register. Schola Cantorum takes us through six unique musical landscapes that share something fundamental: This is music that celebrates the physical and spiritual, thinking and feeling human being — and at the same time poses a challenge. Who are we?
"I love the choir — this instrument which is so unpredictable, so personal. Each member sings with his or her own voice, communicating their own personal story, and my objective is to collect it all, unify and purify it, and hopefully make the Eros, the profound and inherent love, shine brightly by way of the instrument. Whether the music is complex or simple, the objective remains equal: to cultivate an energy and a timbre which merge with the composition, elevating it to something larger than the sum of all its individual elements. It is during this encounter, where each individual forms part of something larger than themselves, that musical magic arises. This is what I seek. Those moments when the eyes of both the performers and our audience glow. This is the moment I know that we have succeeded." — Tone Bianca Sparre Dahl, conductor
Ever since Schola Cantorum was founded by composer Knut Nystedt in 1964, the chamber choir of the Department of Musicology at the University of Oslo has had as its prime goal to present contemporary choral works with a particular emphasis on Norwegian and Nordic composers.