Artist(s)

ISA KATHARINA GERICKE - SOPRANO
Isa Katharina Gericke is known for her versatility as a performer with a repertoire of opera, chamber music and concert works ranging from baroque to contemporary. Her love of Lieder and art songs has resulted in well-received concert performances centred on the life and work of singers Eva Sars Nansen, Kirsten Flagstad and Jenny Lind. Isa reveals further facets of her versatility in the cabaret “Frauen sind keine Engel” featuring music from Berlin in the 1930s and 40s. Isa is a sought-after presenter for various concepts centred on classical music, and she has been artistic director of Kongsberg’s Glogerfestspillene since the start in 2001.

Isa graduated from the Norwegian Academy of Music and the Hochschule der Künste in Berlin. She has won several awards, including the very first Wesselpris awarded by Norske Selskab for her contribution to the promotion of Norwegian vocal music. Isa made her opera début in 2003 as Gretel in Humperdinck’s “Hansel and Gretel” at the Norwegian Opera and Ballet.

Solo engagements have included collaborations with Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, Akademie für alte Musik Berlin, Bremen Philharmonic Orchestra, The Norwegian Radio Orchestra, TrondheimSolistene, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Kammerakademie Potsdam, the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, and conductors Sir Andrew Davies, Manfred Honneck, Franz Brüggen, Philippe Herreweghe, Rinaldo Alessandrini, Antonello Manacorda and Ole Kristian Ruud.

Isa is a frequent guest at chamber music festivals in Norway and abroad, and her CD recordings for Simax Classics and LAWO all have a connection to the Nordic art song repertoire.

BENGT FORSBERG - PIANO
Bengt Forsberg is a leading figure in Swedish music. He is a much sought-after chamber music performer and appears frequently at festivals in Europe and the Nordic countries. His regular collaborators include mezzosoprano Anne Sofie von Otter, cellist Mats Lidström and violinist Nils-Erik Sparf, with whom he has made a number of recordings. Forsberg and von Otter have given recitals worldwide and several of their recordings have received prestigious awards. Forsberg’s solo career includes regular performances with the leading Swedish symphony orchestras as well as with many orchestras abroad.

Forsberg’s repertoire is impressively wide, and it is not unusual for him to bring forgotten works back into the limelight – these might be unusual works by well-known composers or undeservedly neglected works by lesser-known composers. Forsberg is artistic director of the chamber music at Allhelgonakyrkan (All Saints’ church) in Stockholm.

Composer(s)

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