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Artist: Mari Samuelsen
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Mari Samuelsen:

Life

Rich in contemporary colour and contrast, LIFE – Mari Samuelsen’s third album for Deutsche Grammophon – is inspired by her experience of becoming a mother. She will give the world premiere of Sapiasramming as well as her passionate and virtuosic playing, the Norwegian violinist has created a kaleidoscopic musical reflection of some of the emotional discoveries that come with parenthood. The album presents music by Olivia Belli, Bryce Dessner, Ludovico Einaudi, Nils Frahm, Jóhann Jóhannsson, Mário Laginha, Hania Rani, Max Richter and Steve Reich, with a dash of Schubert also thrown into the mix. Samuelsen was joined at Teldex Studios in Berlin last autumn by a small group of fellow musicians, including the string players of Scoring Berlin, conducted by Jonathan Stockhammer. LIFE  is out now digitally and on vinyl.

The initial idea for LIFE came to Mari Samuelsen around the time her first child was born, and she recorded the album while pregnant with her second. Welcoming new life into the world has inevitably brought an additional dimension to her own existence. “Having a child takes away layers of artifice,” she explains. “Getting to know a tiny new human being is fantastic; seeing their reactions to everything: how they start to communicate, how they react to surprises, to light, to smiles – for the very first time in their life. I wanted to put a sound to that: love, happiness, curiosity…”

The album begins with Cambridge, 1963 from Jóhann Jóhannsson’s soundtrack to The Theory of Everything (arranged for solo violin and ensemble by Max Knoth). Having children, Samuelsen says, has been an eye-opening  experience: “it’s like seeing the light for the first time, and that’s what Jóhannsson’s piece is to me”.

Olivia Belli’s similarly uplifting Sapias was written specifically for LIFE, the result of long discussions between violinist and composer. “I wanted to create the sound of an embrace, and I think Olivia captured that beautifully,” notes Samuelsen. She will give the world premiere of Sapias (and perform other works from the new album) with the RTÉ Concert Orchestra at the National Concert Hall in Dublin on 16 August 2024.

Mari Samuelsen:

Lys

Mari Samuelsen’s latest Deutsche Grammophon album explores the phenomenon on which so much of life on earth depends. Lys – Norwegian for “Light” – presents music by thirteen female composers, from Hildegard of Bingen to Hildur Guðnadóttir, combining specially commissioned works with new arrangements of existing pieces. The fourteen tracks are woven together to create a meditation in sound on something so fundamental that it is often taken for granted. The Norwegian violinist’s eclectic programme moves through light’s infinitely subtle qualities to reveal a musical world of boundless shades of emotion and expression. Lys is set for release on 20 May 2022.

“We humans have so many impressions of light, what light feels like, in good and bad times,” Mari Samuelsen observes. “I hope that speaks through the music on this album. We instinctively sense the way light affects our feelings, and the influence on our being of dark light, of ‘negative’ light, of the light people talk about just before they die or the ugly light we see from a hospital bed, of shocking laser light and so many other kinds of artificial and natural light. Then you have extreme sunlight, burning down, leaving the land dry and parched. Maybe it’s to do with living in the North or simply with getting older, but these varieties of light touch me now more deeply than ever. All of this was turning over in my mind before I started thinking about who could write the pieces.”

Mari Samuelsen:

Nordic Noir

Norwegian violinist Mari Samuelsen will release a brand new solo albumcalled Nordic Noir on September 15 on Decca Classics. It showcases her passion for contemporary music and celebrates her native culture. For the album, Mari commissioned new music from a host of composers – many of whom have written scores for TV and film – including Frans Bak(The Killing), Uno Helmersson and Johan Söderqvist (The Bridge). The new recording also includes original compositions and arrangements by ?Arvo Pärtand ?Ólafur Arnalds, evoking the mood now recognized around the world as "Nordic Noir."

Mari was closely involved in the writing process of these new compositions – the sound of her violin plays a fundamental part of bringing these new works to life and creating the album's musical landscape. Mari Samuelsen says: "This music is very dear to my heart – it's travelled from Norway and Scandinavia around the world through TV and film, and I'm thrilled to be recording these pieces on my new album. It's also wonderful to have the opportunity to work closely with such outstanding composers to create new works."