Foto: Aage Helde

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Please also listen to and look at live recordings from concerts at: http://www.youtube.com/sirenarecorder

What the press wrote about SIRENA's concerts

SIRENA achieve an ensemble of exceptional purity and vigour. The sound is rich and generous, and the music has a swing to it so one can hardly sit still. (Politiken)

Their ensemble playing seemed like unison breathing, with minute control not only of tempo and volume but also of musical expression. (Fyens Stiftstidende)

SIRENA impress their audiences with technical brilliance, individual versatility, and not least their great joy in playing. (Sydöstran, Sweden)

What the press wrote about SIRENAs CD's

With eminent control at both soloist and ensemble level, the quartet presents an amazing variety of musical possibilities, from intimate and concentrated passages to furious attacks. (Berlingske Tidende)

SIRENA exude revolution, critique of contemporary society, and musical beauty. (Aktuelt)

How artistic they are, these four girls, and with a vengeance! An astonishingly well-playing recorder quartet with a character of its own. (Kristelig Dagblad)

The wonderful thing is that they make contemporary music so exciting and immediately accessible. (Jyllandsposten)

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A unique ensemble in a Danish context, the SIRENA Recorder Quartet originated in the productive environment created by Dan Laurin at the Carl Nielsen Academy of Music in Odense. The ensemble was formed in 1993 and has since given innumerable concerts with a repertoire ranging from Renaissance music via the Baroque period to contemporary music. SIRENA, whose members are Pia Loman, Marit Ernst Bock, Pia Brinch Jensen and Karina Helene Agerbo, have received widespread recognition for their interpretation of both newly written compositions and early music. The quartet has thus won prizes at several competitions, including the 1997 FAN Competition (interpretation of contemporary music) and the Danish Radio Chamber Music Competition in both 1996 and 1998. SIRENA has broadcast on radio and television and has given first performances of numerous works by Danish, Swedish, Icelandic and Norwegian composers. In July 2000 the quartet's first CD Sitting Ducks appeared and in 2003 their second CD baroque followed. Both released by the Swedish record company BIS. In 2001 SIRENA were chosen as Musicians of the Year on the island of Funen with the motivation that "the ensemble is today one of the most original and visionary exponents of classical chamber music in this country. With their music SIRENA make demands on the listener and probably challenge our expectations of a classical recorder ensemble"..."But at the same time one is rewarded with a rich and varied ensemble sound, which can only be achieved by hard work, great attentiveness, and if the right chemistry is there among these four fine instrumentalists".

For the last couple of years SIRENA has concentrated on an entirely innovative way of performing concerts. They play mostly without music, and use choreography in their concerts to highlight the emotional moods of both the new and early music they present.
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Repertoire

The repertoire of SIRENA Recorder Quartet follows the lifetime of the recorder and hence the repertoire of the instrument itself. It covers a period of about 600 years, interrupted only by the Classical and Romantic movements, a period of about 150 years during which the orchestra increased in size and gained access to concert halls which became ever larger, and also a period whose ideals of sound the more direct and intimate recorder did not suit.

Around the mid-20th century, composers began to rediscover the recorder and to take an interest in its potential, for example its vigorous attack and its capacity for extremely subtle intonation.

The period during which the recorder was forgotten is at the same time the period during which most of the classical music played today was composed. As a result, both the old and the new repertoire, which SIRENA throw themselves into with equal enthusiasm and spontaneity, are in a way novel to a present-day audience. In fact, the quartet delights in mixing the two periods in order to give a concert experience rich in contrast but offering unexpected connections.

Contests, distinctions, etc

Sonderpreis (special prize) at the international competition for recorder ensembles in Karlsruhe, 1995.

Winner of the FAN prize (Interpretation of Contemporary Music), 1997.

Winner of sixth prize in the Danish Radio Chamber Music Competition, 1996 and 1998.

Selected for Ung & Lovende (Young and Promising) in Sweden, arranged by the Association of Swedish Chamber Music Societies (RSK), 1998.

Awarded financial support by the society Ny Scene (New Scene) for a concert tour with contemporary music in 2000 and 2005.

Musicians of the Year on the island of Funen, 2001

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