Collection: URANIENBORG VOKALENSEMBLE chamber choir

Uranienborg Vokalensemble is based at Uranienborg church in Oslo. Part of the choir’s duties involve regular participation in the Sunday services, through which they have come to know and love the rich repertoire of hymns. Hymns for each service are carefully chosen to reflect the readings; the hymn tunes are chosen to complement the music – liturgical and otherwise – for each specific occasion. When these ambitions succeed, the service takes on a power of its own, because the music and the words communicate with one another.

The choir consists of approximately 25 singers and is one of Norway’s leading vocal ensembles. Artistic director and principal conductor, Elisabeth Holte, studied at the Norwegian Academy of Music and subsequently with Joseph Gifford in Boston, USA, and with Eric Ericson in Stockholm. When Holte took up the position of church musician at Uranienborg in 2002, she founded the vocal ensemble. In the course of the ensuing years Uranienborg Vokalensemble has toured regularly in Norway, Scandinavia and the USA. The core of the choir’s repertoire is West-European sacred choral music, performing a wide selection of a cappella music and works with organ or orchestra; they have recorded and released four albums, Våkenetter (2007), Song (2013), Himmelrand (2016), and Himmelborgen (2018). Himmelrand was nominated for a Grammy Award in the category for Best Choral Performance.