Cappella SF’s ‘Northern Voices’

Cappella SF presents another geographically-themed concert program this weekend, with Northern Voices, and music from Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Iceland, and Finland. Artistic Director Ragnar Bohlin says the consulates of those countries will be represented in a post-concert reception Sunday evening.

There’s more information about the concerts at the Cappella SF website.

“We’ve done a Swedish-American concert once,” Bohlin says. “And then we’ve done an all-Russian, last fall we did an all-French program, so we’ve sort of done country specific concerts a few times before. This Nordic theme was inspired by an attempt by the consulates here in San Francisco to gather under one umbrella, as it were, and collaborate a bit more.” Iceland has one composer represented, Þorkell  Sigurbjörnsson; and Denmark has two: Peter Lange-Müller and Per Nørgård. There are three each from Norway and Finland, including Grieg and Sibelius; and four Swedes, from Ludvig Norman in the 19th Century to Sven-David Sandström, who died just last year. One of the works, by Ola Gjeilo, is intentionally evocative of the Nordic landscape. “Gjeilo, as a child and youngster, grew up close to this place in Southern Norway actually, but high up in the mountains called Hardangervidda, a vast expanse of snow-capped mountains. And he asked [poet Charles A.] Silvestri to… He described the mountains, and the beautiful magical scenery and asked him, could you write a poem from my description? And he did, and then Gjeilo put this to music.” The concerts will be Saturday night at 8 at the Cathedral of Christ the Light, and Sunday at 5 at the Mission Dolores Basilica.