Trio Mediaeval

Photo By Mary Sledd

Trio Mediaeval

McCullough Theatre, March 22

Pure voice, as exemplified by Trio Mediaeval, requires three music stands, two folding chairs facing each other stage left and right, and a glass of water next to each. In another pristine UT PAC listening room, the 400-seat McCullough Theatre, Oslo threesome Anna Maria Friman, Linn Andrea Fuglseth, and Torunn Østrem Ossum took a half-capacity house to church. Medieval a cappella from the 12th and 13th centuries has that effect. Sampling their three ECM releases, Words of the Angel; Soir, dit-elle; and Stella Maris, the decade-old vocal concern stirred air, imagination, and wonder for the rapt audience. If variance wasn't included in the flux, nearly two hours of pristine sonority wasn't much poorer for it. Attired in complementary folkloric dresses, Ossum a brunette, Fuglseth the spiky redhead, and Friman's short hair dyed blond, the trio's synchronized page-turning, eye contact among themselves, and the occasional decampment of two during the third's solo turn resembled clockwork. Three maids a milking. Ossum's solo, "Laude Novella," was shy, while Fuglseth's Italian Anon, "Beneddicti e Llaudati," held glimmers of mischief in a nonetheless generic delivery. Friman's turn out front, late in the second set, trumped both her partners in confidence, range, and personality. The three-part suite that followed, a contemporary piece by Andrew Smith, affirmed a need for Trio Mediaeval to expand their vocal unison into this millennium. At the last, stepping out in front of their music stands as they had at intervals throughout the evening, all three woman – at the measured distance of about 6 feet apart – let their voices commingle above the audience's heads like a rain cloud full of mankind's greatest instrument.