Photo: Paolo Soriani / ECM Records

The Hilliard Ensemble and Jan Garbarek: Officium Novum

"A cross-cultural combination that produces some of the most beautiful acoustic music ever made" (Evening Standard), the phenomenon of the original Officium continues to develop and renew itself.

The first CD Officium was released in 1994 and has become one of the most successful and best-selling recordings on the ECM label; brought together by Manfred Eicher, this was the first of the Hilliard Ensemble’s collaborations with the Norwegian saxophonist Jan Garbarek.  Since then they have travelled the world together, bringing their unique fusion of vocal incantations and improvisatory flourishes to sold-out houses.

Mnemosyne was the second disc recorded by this collaboration and the long awaited third CD, Officium Novum was released in September 2010 with a series of launch concerts through Europe and in New York.

Presented without amplification in naturally reverberant spaces (usually cathedrals and churches), there have been and will be many more memorable performances; buildings seem to take on a life of their own, as the artists sculpt echoes and resonances.

The following excerpt from a 5 Star review in The Times brilliantly describes how the performance begins:

‘...the magnificent acoustic of King’s chapel. This was brilliantly exploited as Garbarek began the concert playing a keening lament just in front of the chancel screen. Then, the disembodied voices of the Hilliards joined him from the corners of the building, the singers gradually moving to join him on the dais. It was a spine-tingling coup-de-théâtre that set the tone for a mesmeric hour and a half.'