Releases

Throughout history, female composers have faced numerous challenges in pursuing their passion for music. Many, like Signe Lund and Louise Farrenc, had to overcome societal barriers and gender discrimination. Farrenc, for example, earned less than her male colleagues until she successfully advocated for equal pay. Despite these struggles, some women gained recognition in their time. Pauline Viardot, praised by Franz Liszt, became a major force in European music, while Norway’s Pauline Hall was the first woman to receive the Norwegian state artist salary.

These composers, including pioneers like Amy Beach and Florence B. Price, paved the way for women in music. Frøya’s songs celebrate their contributions, aiming to secure them a well-deserved place in both history and concert repertoires.

The music on this album is written by contemporary Norwegian composers. Some of the songs and pieces are part of larger musical works, while others stand alone. “Eg vil skapa min himmel på jord” is from the musical of the same name, and “Vårres bismi” is an excerpt from Titania’s monologue in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, both composed by Gunhild Hjertaas. Eva Holm Foosnæs is behind “Havdronningen” from the opera Ruffen og den flyvende hollender and “No er eg som ein fugl” from Gydjekniven. “In Memoriam” by Ruth Bakke was written in memory of the Alta protests, and “Pust” was Maren Elise Ingeberg’s winning contribution to the Midgard competition in 2019. Birgit Djupedal originally wrote “Du – nordnorsk kjærlighetssang” as a choral arrangement, but for this album, she created a new version for voice and piano.

Some of the songs are composed to older poems by writers such as Inger Hagerup, while others accompany more recent texts.

Frøya Productions extends its heartfelt thanks to the composers and authors for allowing their music and texts to be recorded. Special thanks also to Hilde Chapman for her violin performance on Marthe Belsvik Stavrum’s atmospheric “I eit skimmer.”

In 2011, the married couple Michael Jorgensen and Bonnie Jorgensen, he a professor of music and a skilled singer and she a professional pianist, received a box with about 150 handwritten compositions signed Theodora Cormontan. In the last years of her life, Cormontan lived in a retirement home. There she gave the compositions to Mollie Schmidt, the wife of Otto Schmidt, one of the managers at the retirement home. The box was later passed on and stored, in recent years in Minnesota.

Theodora Nicoline Meldal Cormontan, was born in 1840 in Beistad in Nord-Trøndelag. The family moved to Arendal in 1847 when the father became parish priest in the town, a position he held until 1882. 

Cormontan began her musical education with the town musician and in1863 she moved to Copenhagen to continue her education and pursue a musical career. When her mother died in 1865, Theodora moved back home to the rectory in Arendal to help her father. But this did not hinder Theodora’s musical career: she would give concerts as a soprano soloist and pianist in several Norwegian cities, with very good reviews.