HUSH

A lullaby can calm, but it can also carry wounds. A ritual gathers, but can also summon worlds on the edge of disappearance.

Claudia Jane Scroccaro has spent time with women living in shelters in the Paris area. Their stories were, at times, so traumatic that they could not be told directly, or at least, so the composer felt, they were not hers to tell. Instead, she asked the women to sing their lullabies. These became the material for On the Edge. Written for voice, choir and electronics, the piece explores the boundaries between virtual and real spaces, between imagined voices and those on stage.

Timna, capital of the ancient kingdom of Qatabān in Yemen, was destroyed and abandoned following its conquest by Hadramaut around 150 AD. For Palestinian composer Samir Odeh-Tamimi, ancient Arab and Near Eastern histories are not only the past, but ways of making present erasures felt. His work Timna evokes a ritual that might once have been practised in its temples. The choir sings in a language drawn from archaic Arabic, invented by the composer himself.

Camille Norment closes the evening with a new work written especially for the Norwegian Soloists’ Choir and Norment herself. Her practice is rooted in resonance, psychoacoustics and the psychological effects of sound — where listening becomes something the whole body does.

Programme

Claudia Jane Scroccaro: On the Edge (2023/24), for six soloists, choir and electronics.

Samir Odeh-Tamimi: Timna (2018–2020), for mixed choir, flute, viola, cello, double bass and percussion.

Camille Norment: Title TBA (2026, world premiere)

Facts

• HUSH invites you to lie down and close your eyes. This is not about rest, but listening in a heightened state.
•  This concert marks a new chapter for the Norwegian Soloists' Choir: Yuval Weinberg leads his first Oslo concert as artistic director.
• Scroccaro's On the Edge was composed after a long exchange with the SWR Vokalensemble and Weinberg, who was their chief conductor. It had its premiere at Donaueschingen in 2024.
• Camille Norment at Ultima: Read more about Norment's solo exhibition Wonderful, Marvelous at Atelier Nord.