A rare live recording by the Gavin Bryars Ensemble made at the 2008 Punkt Festival in Norway, this new album includes acclaimed trumpeter Arve Henriksen in new work written for him. It’s all repertoire that is performed by the ensemble worldwide, mostly involving the singers here, Anna Maria Friman and John Potter.

A major thrust of Gavin Bryars' work as a performer is with his own ensemble, a pool of players who are those musicians that the composer has chosen to work with and who are the best interpreters of his work. This recording is the first time that Gavin Bryars has issued a live recording of his ensemble, here a smaller group, which includes the soprano Anna Maria Friman and tenor John Potter (see also their studio recording on BCGBCD05 Oi me lasso). It was made at the 2008 Punkt Festival in Kristiansand, Norway, and has the highly acclaimed improvising trumpeter Arve Henriksen as guest with the ensemble for two pieces, one of which, Lauda 37 "Ciascun ke fede sente", was written specially for him and premiered on this occasion. Several of the artists are especially associated with ECM (which issued four recordings of Bryars’ music in the 1980s). Anna Maria Friman is one of the vocalists in Trio Mediaeval; John Potter was a member of the Hilliard Ensemble and more recently has been heard on the label with his own group The Dowland Project; and Arve Henriksen has appeared regularly as a sideman on various jazz recordings and made his leader debut with Cartography at the end of 2008. The trumpeter can be heard at Bath Abbey on 5 June in an exciting collaboration with English National Ballet, a highlight of this year’s Bath Festival.