Dear all!

Artistic, economic, and green sustainability is our focus for the Church Music Festival 2026. We are constantly seeking to develop our artistic objectives and to find new solutions suitable to a time of great challenges. The festival brings church music into the 21st century, with smaller ensembles and fewer visitors from afar, as a conscious step to reduce both our climate footprint and costs.

For this year’s opening concert, we are proud to present one of the world’s leading choirs, Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir under the direction of the legendary conductor Tõnu Kaljuste. They are bringing a moving and beautiful program by Arvo Pärt, one of our time’s most played contemporary composers. The festival concludes with our very own Soloists’ Choir, this time under the direction of another legendary conductor: Peter Phillips, the founder and conductor of world renowned The Tallis Scholars. We will hear works by William Byrd, Thomas Tallis, Nico Muhly, and Arvo Pärt. Something to look forward to!

World premieres
We present Bent Sørensen’s completed St John Passion with Theatre of Voices, strings from Ensemble Allegria, and conductor Paul Hillier, who is also one of today’s leading conductors. We are premiering Tyler Futrell’s latest work Epilog: On the Nature of Things, commissioned by the festival. The work is a part of Futrell’s humanist “musica sacra”-trilogy, which also includes his earlier Stabat mater and Rest – Requiem for strings and voices. All of them had their premieres at the festival, to great acclaim from both audiences and reviewers. At the premiere, the work is performed by cellist Amalie Stalheim and Oslo Cathedral Choir under the direction of Oslo Cathedral’s new Director of Music Oddgeir Kjetilstad.

A new work titled Pavane by the Danish composer Christian Præstholm will also have its premiere, performed in Uranienborg Church during Espen Melbø’s organ concert on the last day of the festival.

Cultural encounters – East of Western church music
This year’s festival will bring us some exciting encounters, outside of our Western church music sphere. The Mosque-Cathedral of Córdoba in Spain has a rich history, both as a Christian, Muslim, and Catholic place of worship, and is today a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Musician and architect Eduardo Paniagua and his ensemble Música Antigua convey this diverse history through beautiful melodies and songs from the 8th until the 17th centuries – performed in Oslo’s oldest building still standing, Gamle Aker Church.

From Georgia, we welcome the choir Choir of the Monastery of 13 Assyrian Holy Fathers and their famous director Seraphim Bit-Kharibi. Here, Assyrian and Georgian Orthodox traditions are explored. The choir presents traditional hymns and prayers in Aramaic, assumed to be the primary language spoken by Jesus. The concert is introduced by professor of Religious Education Anders Aschim. French Camille Bordet and Iranian Mostafa Taleb, who also visited the festival in 2025, return with The Book of Queens, inspired by historical and mythical female figures. Here, they weave together Persian melodies and European musical traditions in a rich and living soundscape, with texts from both religious and secular sources. The women cry out their love from the Persian realm to medieval Europe, from Iran to 21st century France. Anchored in the present, the ensemble promotes community across cultures and religions.

Musician and theologian Jo Hegle Sjøflot will together with Qohelet Ensemble present Songs From the Book of Quohelet. The texts are from the Hebrew original text of Ecclesiastes from the Old Testament. Sjøflot has written music for Quohelet’s Hebrew texts, and he himself is singing in Hebrew.

Chief Organist at Oslo Cathedral, Marcus André Berg, will perform an organ program spanning different parts of the world, connecting East and West together.

French Baroque
We look forward to once again welcoming Christophe Rousset. This time, he is only accompanied by three musicians; the two critically acclaimed sopranos Michèle Bréant and Suzanne Jérosme and the exceptional gambist Atsushi Sakaï. Together, they will perform Couperin’s most important contribution to church music and a Baroque highlight, Lecons de ténébres.

Musical creeds
Ssens Trio and the singers Ditte Marie Bræin (soprano), Daniel Sæther (alto), and Øystein Stensheim (tenor) will perform Arvo Pärt’s Stabat Mater and Ivan Moody’s Simeron. Both works show signs of the composers’ connection to the Orthodox Church.

Children and youth
The Norwegian Girls Choir and conductor Anne Karin Sundal-Ask will perform Ørjan Matre’s Stjernebru (“Bridge of Stars”), written especially for the girls choir. Matre has arranged nine folk songs for girls choir, accordion, and fiddle, with written and improvised interludes between the movements. Joining the Girls Choir, we find accordionist Frode Haltli, fiddle player Gjermund Larsen, and folk singer Anna Elisabeth Giercksky Russnes as soloists.

We are pleased to welcome you to a family concert with Ensemble Allegria and their project “Allegria NÅ!” (“Allegria NOW!”). The project plays on the moment – a shared now – where musicians and the audience together experience live music. At the concert, the children will become better acquainted with the musicians, their instruments, and how they work together. The children can try to play one of the string instruments, and maybe even conduct the orchestra.

Organ
Chief Organist at Oslo Cathedral, Marcus André Berg will hold a concert based on the festival theme “East of the Western church music”. From Austria, we welcome the critically acclaimed organist Stefan Donner. We will hear works by Bach, Mozart, Reger, and Schmist in Oslo Cathedral. The Boysen Bus with Olav Rune Bastrup and Espen Melbø will this time head to Romerike. This will be an opportunity to experience the organs in the churches in Jessheim, Fet, and Eidsvoll. Nils Henrik Asheim’s Orgelnatt (“Organ Night”) is an exciting new project that Asheim, composer and organist, has developed over a long period of time. Here, the organ is the turning point for an all-encompassing and unpredictable experience of sound, where space, voice, and other artistic devices work together. Asheim is joined by an all-star team: NyNorsk brass quintet, Sofia Jernberg (vocals), Øystein Moen (synthesizer/organ), Tjark Pinne (organ), Marcus André Berg (organ), and singers from Oslo Cathedral Choir sitting among the audience.

There will also be an organ concert with Espen Melbø, the eminent organist in Tønsberg Cathedral – this time in Uranienborg Church, with works by Otto Olsson, Richard Wagner, Jon Laukvik, and Maurice Duruflé, as well as a premiere by the Danish composer Christian Præstholm.

As always, there will be festival church services all over the city, open rehearsals, and interesting concert introductions.

Welcome!

Bente Johnsrud, October 2025
Festival and artistic director