The album I Am a River published

The Helsinki Chamber Choir’s new album I Am a River – Choral Music by Kaija Saariaho & Helena Tulve is out now! The album is available for purchase in record stores and can be streamed on digital platforms. The release is published by BIS Records.

"Finnish Kaija Saariaho and Estonian Helena Tulve, two composers with highly individual voices, both explore instrumental color as a core element of their work. Saariaho's vocal works particularly reveal the full expressive richness of her music. Early pieces like Suomenkielinen sekakuorokappale and Nej och inte established her unique grammar of disintegrating sonic and semantic units; later works such as Lumen valosta and Kesäpaivä further develop this approach with extended vocal techniques.

Tulve's music "grows out from simple primary impulses, being influenced by natural patterns, organics and synchronicity." I Am a River, based on verses by the 13th-century Persian scholar, poet and mystic Rumi, explores the connection between choral music in resonant church acoustics and sensorial mysticism. Nachtliche Gesänge, based on texts by exiled German-speaking Jewish poets, draws it's sonic material from the phonetic properties of the German language.

These works of unusual beauty are entrusted to the expert voices of the Helsinki Chamber Choir under Nils Schweckendiek. This GRAMMY-awarded collaboration, previously heralded for their Saariaho album Reconnaissance (BIS-2662), promises a profound interpretation of these contemporary works for choir." - BIS

The album contains the following works:

Kaija Saariaho (1952-2023)
Lumen valosta (On/From the Light of Snow) (2003)
Nej och inte (No and Not) (1980)
Suomenkielinen sekakuorokappale (Finnish-language mixed choir piece) (1979)
Kesäpäivä (A Summer Day) (2006)

Helena Tulve (b. 1972)
I Am a River (2009)
Nächtliche Gesänge (Nocturnal Songs) (2019)