Is this a review of a film by Bergman? No, it is not – the opposite is more likely to be the case. However, there actually WERE Swedish aspects and Danish as well… In fact the "Nordic Voices with a View to the World" made it possible to listen to an actual "cultural bridge".


Review in the the daily newspaper Berlingske Tidende, October 23, 2000

By Ursula Andkjær Olsen

Saturday night at the Royal Library, one of the arrangements from the series of concerts "Voices of a Thousand Years" took place. The title of this was Nordic Voices with a View to the World, performed by the two odd singing elves (so to speak), Gudrun Holck (Denmark) and Eva Åström Rune (Sweden) who sang, whispered and cried in a style completely of their own: a sort of old Nordic folkloristic crossover including percussions and didgeridoos. But most important of all, a performance with an indisputable and irresistible power!

The two female singers in the ensemble were immensely suited both for each other and for the music: Gudrun Holck, the beauty from earth, with a voice like a cutting torch (and I mean this in a very positive way), cutting the lines and the contours of the music with stunning clarity, and the almost angel-like transparent Eva Åström Rune, with her tender and soft voice, mastering the old traditional Swedish melody lines in such a way, that you believed yourself to be in another time and another place.

Having started the evening by gathering the audience by means of very distinct cries of calling in the immense lobby, the actual concert took off with a small à cappella programme, consisting of four Nordic folksongs, performed either completely "naked" or in such extremely well developed and lush arrangements, using their voices in so many ways and so brilliantly that one had a serious doubt whether this indeed was à cappella!! But above all the very simple hymn "Eja" was most touching; sung individually by the two in a Danish and Swedish version.

Next was "Pucksånger – Lockrop" from 1989, by the Swedish composer Karin Rehnquist. The songs have attracted quite some attention when performed internationally, as the composer with her "art music" uses some very loud and strident cries of calling, originating from Swedish folklore. Gudrun Holck, Eva Åström Rune, and the Swedish percussionist Kenneth Franzén, endowed the work with a beautiful intimacy.

"Juicy" and powerful compositions (by the two ladies) for the entire ensemble followed the break in a fine copious folklore/pop manner. Once again, listening to the two elflike women scampering about in the opulence of their own voices was a pure joy, in the same way as they were competently, lively and imaginatively accompanied by Kenneth Franzén and the two didgeridoo- and-everything-else playing gentlemen, Jim Gage and Robert Davis.

Gudrun Holck and Eva Åström Rune, vocal, Kenneth Franzén, percussion, Jim Gage and Robert Davis, didgeridoo. The Queen’s Hall at the Royal Library, Saturday the 21st of October, 2000.

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