Letters from Scandinavia

This is a debut album with a difference. Mezzo soprano Joanna Harries weaves together Swedish, Norwegian & Finnish songs with new text, music & soundscape inspired by 19th century travel writing, which was created with composer Peter Facer and recording engineer Bobby Williams.

Joanna writes:

‘Letters from Scandinavia has grown into something between a song recital and an historical audio travel guide, I suppose; a weaving together of music and text as it follows in the footsteps of womenjourneying to nineteenth-century Nordic countries for the first time. The music is drawn from a rich vein of song by composers including Agathe Backer Grøndahl, Edvard Grieg, Helena Munktell, Laura Netzel, Jean Sibelius and Wilhelm Stenhammar, and interwoven between the songs are new texts inspired by colourful and evocative nineteenth-century travel writing. I’ve had the huge pleasure of working with composer Peter Facer to bring these texts to life with new music to underscore the spoken word.

This period is truly a golden age of Scandinavian song, with a repertoire full of (often undeservedly neglected) gems that are hugely rewarding to perform for both singer and pianist. I’m grateful that my fellow traveller is pianist Sholto Kynoch, who first introduced me to Backer Grøndahl’s works a few years ago, and who plays this repertoire so beautifully.

Letters from Scandinavia is above all a love letter to all things Nordic. I very much hope you enjoy it. (Best served with a cinnamon bun…)’