MOUNTAINLORE is the fourth release in the new ‘Year of Lore’ series of 12 EPs by internationally acclaimed composer and performer Laura Cannell. Every month throughout 2024, Laura creates a new release of music to reflect real and imagined ‘Lores’.

Mountainlore explores the myths of trolls, of snowy peaks and a captures the wild freedom in the high altitudes. The fiddle playing is inspired by the folklore of Norwegian trolls and the centuries of folklore embedded into the worlds mountains. Sleeping giants, hidden cave cities, streams, volcanos and lush green all meet at the points where the earth’s crust is the most visible.

Cannell presents a set of 3 semi-improvised pieces which begin with ‘I followed an Eagle over the Summit’ played on overbow violin with avian harmonics evoking space, slow landscapes, seasons.

The ancient sound of the fiddle sits in the mountain pass, the roads and rivers which separate the sleeping beasts. In ‘As the Snow Burns on the Peak’, there is a deep violin lullaby to accompany the midday sun as it melts the snow, revealing lush green and unforgiving flint and rock.

Our inherited folklore tells us not to venture into the dark places for fear of waking the sleeping trolls, but there is always someone who will take a step too close to see if they will really wake up. ‘Wake the Sleeping Mountain Trolls’ is a test, I dare you to play it near a sleeping troll. They seem so gentle when they are slumbering nestled in the landscape. Minimalist fiddle motifs are drawn from hardanger fiddle styles high up in the peaks.

ABOUT THE THE SERIES

Mountainlore (April) follows Riverlore (March), Earthlore (February) and Sealore (January).

The stories and folklore of people and places seem to find their way in to Cannell’s music, so she leans further in to draw them out of the earth, the sea and the landscape and to give a voice to the uncanny and the unseen.

Following the release of her latest solo album ‘Midwinter Processionals’ in December 2023 Laura has recently appeared as a guest on BBC Radio 3’s ‘This Classical Life’, she was featured on BBC Radio 6Music’s Scene Sounds, was a guest on the popular folklore podcast ‘Folklands’. One of her compositions ‘The Gatherers’ was re-imagined and performed in a sold out performance at the London Coliseum in a concert curated by broadcaster Elizabeth Alker (BBC Radio 3) and the composer Max Richter. This month also saw the World Premiere of a new commission written for The Marian Consort - 8 part vocal ensemble called “For the Plants that Bind Us”. For a full biography please visit www.lauracannell.com