ABOUT MARTINA
a graduate of both the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, and the Royal Northern College of Music, martina is A SOPRANO BASED IN BERGEN, NORWAY, AND A young artist with the Bergen National Opera and Edvard Grieg Kor. Martina performed as part of the chorus for the 2021 BNO production of La Clemenza di Tito. Further soloist credits with the Bergen Philharmonic (BF0) include performing as part of Festspill in Bergen “Let’s Play”, and R. V. William’s Serenade to Music. READ MORE
RECENT WORK
Active across a wide range of repertoire, Martina’s recent musical work has involved recording Rebecka Sofia Ahvenniemi’s dynamic new work Soundtrack of an Imaginary Opera, performing as part of the Festspill in Bergen “Let’s Play!” with the Bergen Philharmonic, performing as soprano soloist with the Edvard Grieg Kor and Bergen Philharmonic for Vaughan Williams’s Serenade to Music, and as part of the chorus for Bergen National Opera’s 2021 production of La Clemenza di Tito. Martina has performed as part of the FirStemt quartet for 2 years.
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This album is the soundtrack to an opera that does not exist in reality. The listener is invited to imagine a drama behind the six individual “soundtrack songs”. The aim of the music is to open up an imaginary world, where traditions of opera and social identity are reflected.
Opera as a musical genre is often considered as presenting characters, feelings and dramas that relate to something universal within our human being-ness. However, most historical operas – in their librettos and musical narratives – have been formed by white, Western males, belonging to certain social backgrounds, and may exclude other perspectives. What kind of ideas and attitudes does the Western history of operas reflect? How is, for example, an ideal woman depicted?
- Rebecka Sofia Ahvenniemi
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Martina has performed as part of the FirStemt quartet since 2020 . Their customers include Bergen National Opera, NextGentel, Fjordkraft, Faculty of Law at the University of Bergen (UiB), and Department of Comparative Politics at UiB.
More information and bookings: https://www.firstemt.no/
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Martina performed the role of “Witness” in this new work by Eldad Diamant based on a book by poet Judith Drigues. “Fivestones” marks a fusion between theatre, opera, improvisation, video, spoken-word, and visual effects.
A meditation on the concept of memory, trauma, and loss as viewed through the eyes of a child, a woman, a witness, an administrator, and a stone. Loosely structured around the stories of the Holocaust, Fivestones explores the effect that cataclysmic events have on different layers of society, as each character tries to come to terms with irreversible reality.
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Commissioned by the Edvard Grieg Choir, composer Tyrone Landau set five Italian sonnets and English narrations to music for Martina and four other members of Bergen National Opera’s Young Voices programme studying at the Royal Northern College of Music.
FIVESTONES is a new work by Eldad Diamant based on a book by poet Judith Drigues. A meditation on the concept of memory, trauma, and loss as viewed through the eyes of five disparate characters: a child, a woman, a witness, an administrator and a stone.
Commissioned by the Edvard Grieg Kor, composer Tyrone Landau set five Italian sonnets and English narrations to music for Martina and four other members of Bergen National Opera’s Young Artist programme studying at the RNCM.
Lieder Matinée “Aus der Heimat” - Martina performed Rachmaninov Romances in this lunchtime recital with baritone Alex Robarts and pianist Alexey Pudinov as part of the AD Festival Days recital series Portraits.
