Hirundo Maris 

Arianna Savall & Petter Udland Johansen

In September 2009, Arianna Savall and Petter Udland Johansen founded the ensemble Hirundo Maris, specializing in early music from the Middle Ages to the Baroque, their own compositions, and traditional music. From their extensive collaboration emerged a creative focus on Mediterranean and Nordic music. Like the swallow that gives the ensemble its name, they find common paths across the sea and through music, connecting Scandinavia and the Iberian Peninsula since time immemorial.

Hirundo Maris has performed at numerous music festivals across Europe and Asia, including the Stanser Musiktage, the Cologne Festival for Early Music, Jazz in Church Bucharest, the Menuhin Festival Gstaad, Bachwochen Thun, Styriarte, All’Improvviso Festival, Kirkemusikk Festivalen Oslo, Nordlysfestivalen Tromsø, Gulbenkian Concert House Lisbon, the Harp Festival in Dinan (Brittany), Seduced by Harps (Belgium), the International Harp Festival in Sentmenat (Catalonia), Arp Sanati Dergi in Istanbul (Turkey), the Festival Alia Vox Fontfroide and Philippe Maillard Productions (Paris), Hong Kong Art Festival, Festival Jordi Savall Poblet, Misteria Paschalia (Krakow), Festival Agape (Geneva), Forum for Early Music Zurich, Concert and Theater St. Gallen, Classiques! in Riehen, KlangVokal (Dortmund), Festival de Música Antiga dels Pirineus (FëMAP), Espurnes Barroques, International Music Festival of Póvoa de Varzim, CaixaForum, Pro-Loco di Buttgliera Alta, Suoni della Murgia, Muse Salentine Festival, Festival di Torrechiara Renata Tebaldi, The Festival of Sacred Art Sion, Ludwigsburg Palace Festival, Schwetzingen SWR Festival, RheinVokal, Mainzer Musiksommer, among others.

Its first CD “Chants du Sud et du Nord” was recorded with the renowned ECM label by Manfred Eicher. This recording, personally produced by M. Eicher, was enthusiastically received by international critics. Since their beginning in 2009, Hirundo Maris has released five CDs. The first was “Chant du Sud et du Nord” in 2012 on the ECM Records label with Manfred Eicher as producer. This was followed by three CDs on the Carpe Diem Records label: “Vox Cosmica” in 2014, “Il Viaggio d’Amore” in 2015, and “The Wind Rose” in 2017 with Jonas Niederstadt and Hirundo Maris as producers, and then by Sony Classical the Christmas CD “Silent Night” in 2018, for the label Fuga Libera “POÉSIE ET MUSIQUE” in 2021, and in November 2023 on the Carpe Diem Records label “El Cant de la Sibil.la & Draumkvedet”.

Since its inception 15 years ago in 2009, Hirundo Maris has demonstrated remarkable creativity and innovation in its musical field. Through improvisation, original musical arrangements, and the creation of new sounds, the group has impressively showcased its unique talent and abilities.

Under the vast European sky, Hirundo Maris spreads its workshops and courses like stars on a clear night. They weave a band of harmony and knowledge that extends beyond borders, touching the souls of participants and awakening in them an echo of creativity and community that will resonate in their hearts for a long time. In addition to these events, Hirundo Maris also engages intensively in educational projects with children, teenagers, and adults at the Conservatory El Musical in Bellaterra. These projects include, for example, working on classical works like the ‘Llibre Vermell de Montserrat’ and Mozart’s ‘Requiem,’ thereby conveying a wide range of musical experiences and knowledge.

“The ensemble blends elements of Nordic and Mediterranean tradition in a smooth, formal, yet steadfastly slow dance – magnificent.” Nick Coleman, The Independent, July 2012

Hirundo Maris collaborates with numerous other ensembles and labels such as Alia Vox, Ramée Records, CAB Records, Jordi Savall, Carlos Núñez, Hofkapelle Graz, Die Freitagsakademie, Les haulz et les bas, Res Temporis, and Ensemble vocal de Saint-Maurice.

“What is special about experiencing a concert by ‘Hirundo Maris’ is being invited into the world of the respective music, having the gates and doors opened for you to enter these worlds and experience them with body, soul, and spirit! This is possible because this ensemble and every single member approach the works with such great joy, enthusiasm, and passion, with their committed manner to the content and also to a joy of improvisation, where hardly any words are needed but the feelings, thoughts, and sometimes just glances or gestures, which move worlds and trigger something new! The audience can participate in this and it makes a concert by ‘Hirundo Maris’ a very special experience.”

Oliver Serge Stuber

“Arianna Savall and Petter Udland Johansen embark on a spatial and temporal musical journey, alternating traditional (Sephardic, Catalan, Spanish, Celtic, and Norwegian) music with their own compositions, creating an intensely personal poetic sound world that mixes their musical practice acquired over their careers with a surprising naturalness and an exceptional diversity that encompasses all the pieces. Accompanied by the harp and the Hardingfele, Arianna Savall and Petter Udland Johansen achieve a mature, subtle characterisation of each tone, bringing out the full color palette of the plucked instruments. The voice, as usual, is adorned with alternately warm or clear light, hand in hand with perfect discipline and above all the ability to invoke musical expressions like the natural clarity of traditional singing. Moreover, Arianna and Petter have surrounded themselves with exceptional musicians of diverse origins who masterfully bridge the various stylistic directions while maintaining their diverse aesthetic horizon. Under the name HIRUNDO MARIS (Latin for Sea Swallow), the ensemble lives up to its name, jumping tirelessly from one continent to another, from one era to another, thus creating for each piece a clearly defined ambiance with countless reflections, always preserving the Mediterranean and Nordic warmth that is inseparably part of the musical heritage of Arianna Savall and Petter Udland Johansen. Thus, an exceptional originality and flawless musical skill emerge in an era when bridging musical repertoires, cultivated forms, and long-standing oral traditions is constantly sought.”

Yutha Tep

“There is a very beautiful image to explain what music from past times actually is. Imagine a message in a bottle full of emotion that was thrown into the sea of time hundreds of years ago, and which we are now reopening. The message contained within it, in the best case, hits us with the enchantment, the energy with which it was once imbued. This is the high art of interpretation.

But can this be done? Simply stride through the centuries and countries, singing songs of love, as if there were no boundaries between them, in time and space? And to add to the old songs, new ones that place themselves in a tradition yet assert the present? Of course, it can be done, it must even be done if one consistently understands old music as contemporary. Arising in the moment it is sung and played, understood in the moment it is heard. This is exactly what Arianna Savall and Petter Udland Johansen do, inviting us to follow them.”

Thomas Höft