Norwegian Soloists’ Choir

The Norwegian Soloists’ Choir occupies a unique position in the music life of Norway. The choir has given over two hundred premier performances of which over seventy have been of works by Norwegian composers. The choir was established in 1950 by the Norwegian Soloists’ Society with the aim of becoming an elite ensemble for performing choral music to the highest possible standard. The choir’s first conductor was Knut Nystedt, who led the ensemble for forty years. In 1990 Grete Pedersen took over as conductor, and now holds the position of artistic director of the Norwegian Soloists’ Choir.

The members of the Norwegian Soloists’ Choir are professionally trained, hand-picked singers all of whom are potential soloists in their respective genres. The choir engages twenty-six singers on time-limited contracts, a model which allows the number of singers to be varied according to the repertoire of a particular project. This gives both flexibility and stability and permits the choir to achieve its overall object at all times: the best possible musical results. The Norwegian Soloists’ Choir performs in Norway and in other countries, at venues ranging from concert halls and churches to ball rooms and bus garages. The choir maintains a youthful profile, receptive to and willing to perform newly written works, while at the same time retaining a fundament of classical works from the Nordic and international choral
repertoire.

Since 1990 the choir has sung under the leadership of Grete Pedersen, internationally acclaimed for her stylistically assured and musically convincing performances. Through a great number of concerts in Norway and abroad, recordings for radio and television, and CD recordings, she has become one of the most noted and sought-after conductors in the Nordic countries.

2010