Paul Hillier and Ars Nova Copenhagen continue their exploration of Danish vocal music. The main work here, Line Tjørnhøj’s Vox Reportage, was composed in close co-operation with the artists, and weaves various sources together – including 1981 Nobel laureate Elias Canetti, Chelsea Manning, and Rabi’ahal Adawiyya (8th-century Iraq) – to create a ‘reportage’ on the nature of humanity over the past thousand years. In Carl Nielsen’s Three Motets, Renaissance polyphony and the composer’s more personal style are molded into something fresh and powerful; the Swedish Romantic composer Stenhammar sets Danish texts, while Holmboe sets British border ballads. Everything about this album crosses borders of one kind or another!

A follow-up to Ars Nova Copenhagen and Paul Hillier’s critically acclaimed ‘First Drop’ (Cantaloupe Music, 2017), which The Guardian called ‘inspired’ and ‘immaculate throughout’.

Line Tjørnhøj (b. 1960) is one of this year’s recipients of the great Carl Nielsen Prize (100,000 Euros) – a former sailor and nurse, she took up composing late in life and is now one of Denmark’s most interesting experimental opera composers.

Ars Nova Copenhagen and Paul Hillier received a Grammy Award in 2009 for their recording of David Lang’s The Little Match Girl Passion (Harmonia Mundi). In 2011 they were nominated for Best Choral Performance for ‘The Natural World of Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen’ (Dacapo).