Ivo Haarla brings a mix of a jazz band of Hayden Powell/tp, Trygve Seim/ts-ss, Ulf Krokfors/b, Mika Kallio/dr-per and her switching between harp and piano with the Norrlands Operans Symfoniorkester conducted by Jukka Iisakkila.
There are only four songs, all clocking in at around a quarter of an hour, and they are wondrous lights of beauty and thought. “Songbird Chapel” has Haarla’s harp wisping like a light through a summer rain as Powell’s trumpet hovers like a morning mist around the rich sonorities of the orchestra. “Perserving With Winter” is filled with icicles of percussion and a cold storm of brooding grey strings, veering towards a climax, while “Ante-Before Dawn…” is a musical promise of better times and seasons ahead with Seim’s reed opening like a flower petal. This is one to savor-is there a movie to accompany it?
ECM Records