The sound of Trio Mediæval is so beautiful and transcendent, they’re often described as angels. And indeed, they’re often singing ancient sacred music, written for worship. But for the all-female, Grammy-nominated trio from Norway, the beauty in their music is how it transcends spirituality. It’s deeply personal, but also universal. “There’s something mysterious about it and something quite meditative”, say Anna Maria Friman, one of the founding members. Although they often sing in Latin, the trio do not publish translations in their programs or album booklets, because they want the audience to enjoy the music without being channelled into prescriptive meanings. “You can let your thoughts flow wherever you want, because you’re not directed by any certain words.”
“Today’s listeners are free to relate to and connect with spirituality in whatever way feels comfortable to them.”
Bringing Peace
“There are probably as many individual perspectives on spirituality as there are performers,” Friman says. “Today’s listeners are free to relate to and connect with spirituality in whatever way feels comfortable to them”.
Whatever meaning the audience is channelling, the overwhelming feeling is usually peaceful. “It is good, in this world, to give the audience feelings of calm and peace,” says Friman. But for the trio themselves, the experience of singing isn’t transcendent – while the music projects calm, they are working hard to produce a sound that appears effortless. “We are using our voices, so we don’t feel that ourselves when we are singing. But I know people feel like that, listening to us sing.”
How it all began
Linn Andrea Fuglseth had just completed her music studies and was at home with her first child when she began toying with the idea of an all-female, early music trio. “I was really inspired by renaissance and medieval music at the time,” Fuglseth explains. During a year spent at Guildhall School of Music, she’d fallen in love with medieval English three-part carols. “I came back to Norway with a bunch of music and wanted to start a group of three female singers.” She asked a friend and an acquaintance she’d done some singing with to join. Neither of the others had sung medieval music before. “But we found it was really quite fun!”
The year was 1997, and the three began practising together three hours at a time, three days a week, and decided to invest in a summer school run by the Hilliard ensemble in Cambridge. It was there they began to sing contemporary music – reluctantly – and attracted the notice of contemporary composers. After hearing them sing at the summer school, Ivan Moody wrote ‘Words of the Angel’ especially for them. The piece became the title of their first album, launched to huge acclaim in 2001. It made Billboard’s Top 10 Bestseller list.
Since then, the Trio has become famous for their ethereal arrangements of medieval music and spine-tingling performances of contemporary works inspired by medieval music. Fuglseth began arranging Norwegian folk music and medieval ballads, anxious to see if anyone would like them – and they did. Their 2009 album Folk Songs was nominated for a Grammy. A long list of collaborations with inventive musicians and orchestrashas expanded their repertoire into Nordic jazz. Fuglseth describes their taste as melodic and minimalist, but isn’t interested in pursuing authenticity over invention. While they each grew up listening to pop music – David Bowie, Whitney Houston, Ricky Astley – they’ve so far resisted any pressure to arrange the Beatles or Abba in plainsong. “We’ll leave that to others!”
Performing for nearly twenty years and producing nine albums hasn’t stopped the group pursuing other creative projects, but the lineup of the band has changed slightly over the years. Founding members Linn Andrea Fuglseth and Anna Maria Friman now perform with Jorunn Lovise Husan, who joined the group in 2018.
Symmetry between Medieval and Modern
While the pairing of contemporary jazz and medieval sacred chant looks odd on paper, in the concert hall, there’s a remarkable symmetry. Modern composers often break the rules of harmonics set in the Romantic and Classical periods, and play with dissonance and harmony in a way that reflects the pre-Classical era. Friman explains a lot of their contemporary pieces were inspired by medieval music, and traditional folk music has its roots in the Middle Ages. “It’s all connected!”
Friman is a scholar of early music, with a PHD from York University, and is delighted performers of early music have moved away from pursuing authenticity. What they are doing on stage is “an act of simultaneous preservation and re-creation”, Friman explains. Making music from more than 1000 years ago come alive in the present is remarkable – and there’s no need to pursue authenticity that is at best an educated guess. “None of it was written to be a part of a concert program,” she says – “nor was it intended to be performed to an audience as we understand it.”
“There’s always something new to discover, even singing the most ancient songs. Whether you sing opera, or songs, or folk songs, you just have to go into the text wholehearted.”
A heart for performance
But audiences love to hear them, and the Trio maintains a busy concert schedule performing with some of the world’s best orchestras and chamber groups in prestigious venues including Wigmore Hall, the Kennedy Centre and the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. With their fondness for collaboration, arrangements, improvisation and invention, the ACO are a natural fit. In 2026, Richard Tognetti directs a soul-stirring collaboration between the ACO, Trio Mediæval and extraordinary trumpeter Arve Henriksen. The ensemble will perform an evocative program of music featuring ancient hymns from the frozen North, music by Sigur Rós and Grammy Award winning composer Hildur Guðnadóttir.
There’s always something new to discover, even singing the most ancient songs. Whether you sing opera, or songs, or folk songs, you just have to go into the text wholehearted,” Fuglseth believes. And whether they’re arranging fragments of an ancient mass, reimagining Nordic folk songs or revolutionising the concept of a Christmas album, as with 2024’s release of Yule, Trio Mediæval sing everything with their whole heart. It’s impossible to remain unmoved.
Click here to discover and book From Winter's Stillness, touring to Canberra, Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth, Sydney, and Brisbane from 25 July - 9August.
Written by Jennifer Williams
