Stille Som Sne | Quiet as snow

SILENT AS SNOW Snow is pure and peaceful. It clears the air, softens surroundings, and “silences softly the voices that speak too loudly”. The Christmas story has become a universal story in our time. It speaks of peace and reconciliation, love, hope and generosity, ideals we all can and ought to strive for, especially in a time when our part of the world is more turbulent and unpredictable than it has been for a long time. Differences are accentuated, and it can be difficult to hear what is being said for the din of voices of those who believe they are right. But the Christmas carols speak of a light that is lit, offering hope to the world. They speak of something larger in our midst permeating our day-to-day lives and helping us see the special in the ordinary. The wish for peace and the call to look out for each other resonates more perceptibly at Christmas and must not be forgotten when the holiday is over. It is our hope that our album Stille som sne can help us to remember these very things and continue to proclaim the message of peace on Earth in the title of the first KSS Christmas release, Arme jord ha jolefred. This year (2020) the Women’s Choral Society of the University of Oslo (Kvindelige Studenters Sangforening — KSS) is celebrating the 125th anniversary of its founding. The choir has always been committed to contributing to a diverse range of music for and by women — out of pure necessity in the beginning, as at the end of the nineteenth century the repertoire for female choir was scant indeed. Choir singing was the domain of men. Over the years, however, the role of women has changed in this realm of music, as well as in the world at large, and the time has long passed that KSS has had to turn to the male repertoire to fill out its concert programme. As a tribute to this progress, and as a further contribution to the stock of the Norwegian female choir repertoire, this album Stille som sne consists almost entirely of music arranged for KSS in recent years. Its span is broad in terms of the age and origin of the songs, but the focus on Norwegian texts is what they all have in common.