Unni Løvlid, Marianne Baudouin Lie
Svarteboka
Folk singer Unni Løvlid and cellist Marianne Baudouin Lie explore tonality
ACD5136
2026
Business Title
Aurora Records proudly presents a new album by Unni Løvlid and Marianne Baudouin Lie, who came together through a shared interest in the diversity of tonality, seeking to understand more, to sense more, to fine-tune the ability to shift perspectives, and to perform and communicate across different musical communities. This project, and many others, grew out of that aspiration. So did a friendship.
Historically, a svartebok (“black book”) was a book of magic containing spells, incantations, and medical remedies. The oldest known svartebok in Norway dates from around 1480 and was found in Vinje, Telemark.
Løvlid and Lie call their album a svartebok of our own time. It is beautiful and unsettling. Through art, it asks questions. It is a call to remain awake and attentive. Mahvash Sabet, whose texts have been set to music by Lasse Thoresen, is an internationally acclaimed Iranian poet who has been imprisoned in her homeland. The texts we have been given permission to share here were created under torture. Torture inflicted because of her art, her beliefs, and the questions she dares to ask.
This Svartebok consists of commissioned works, original compositions, and improvisations. Each composer was given artistic freedom, and worked together with the musicians through an ongoing creative process. The texts are drawn from black books, witchcraft incantations, invocations, poems, hymns, and states of being. The works are shaped by different tonal systems, and by Løvlid and Lie’s identity as a duo.
Unni Løvlid
Unni Løvlid is a folk singer from Hornindal. She is an associate professor and head of the folk music program at the Norwegian Academy of Music (NMH). Løvlid has a broad artistic profile, with folk song at its core. In 1999 she released her first solo album, «So ro liten tull». At the same time, she collaborated with Arne Nordheim, appeared as a soloist with ensembles including the Norwegian Radio Orchestra, the Bergen Philharmonic and BIT20, and worked with freely improvising ensembles such as SPUNK and UTLA and folk music trios such as RUSK. In 2006 she became the first person named Folk Musician of the Year at Folkelarm, and in 2007 she received the Gammleng Prize in the folk music category. That same year she won a Spellemann Award in contemporary music for the release of Arne Nordheim's Draumkvedet. She has a solid international career and has created commissioned works for the Førde International Folk Music Festival, the Osa Festival and the Tonehimmel Festival. In 2022 Unni won a Spellemann Award for the album UNAMNA.
Marianne Baudouin Lie
Marianne Baudouin Lie is a performing cellist, chamber musician and professor at the NTNU Department of Music. She has studied in Oslo, Trondheim, Gothenburg and London. From 2020 to 2023 Lie held a working grant from the Norwegian Government Grants for Artists, which allowed her to immerse herself in artistic processes and improvisation. She is active as a soloist, both in her own solo projects and as a soloist with SiTron, Trondheimsolistene and the Trondheim Symphony Orchestra, and as an ensemble musician with Alpaca Ensemble, SiTron, Trondheimsolistene and the Trondheim Jazz Orchestra, among others. In 2020 she received the Society of Norwegian Composers' Performer of the Year award together with Alpaca Ensemble. Her extensive discography includes a large number of releases across contemporary, classical and crossover projects, with several Spellemann nominations.
Lasse Thoresen is a Norwegian composer. Since 1975 he has taught and carried out research in electrophony, sonology and composition. He is professor emeritus of composition at the Norwegian Academy of Music. In 2010 he received the Nordic Council Music Prize for the vocal work Opus 42, which consists of four pieces written especially for the vocal ensemble Nordic Voices.
Jon Øivind Ness has written for the Arditti Quartet, the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, all of the Norwegian symphony orchestras, Ensemble Ernst, Oslo Sinfonietta, BIT20, Bodø Sinfonietta, Cikada and several others.
Lene Grenager is an improvising cellist and composer who has been commissioned by Cikada, Alpaca Ensemble, Ensemble Ernst, BIT20, the Trondheim Symphony Orchestra, the Oslo Philharmonic, SiTron, Ensemble Zwischentöne, Ultima, the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival and the Affinis Ensemble, among others. She is an associate professor of composition at the Norwegian Academy of Music.
Sven Lyder Kahrs is an award-winning Norwegian composer who studied with Finn Mortensen, Kolbjørn Ofstad, Brian Ferneyhough and Emmanuel Nunes. He received the Edvard Prize in 2001, and was the first recipient of the Arne Nordheim Composer's Prize in 2005.
Karin Rehnqvist is an award-winning Swedish composer. She was a professor at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm, and her music moves in the borderland between folk and contemporary music.
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Supported by
Svarteboka
Unni Løvlid, Marianne Baudouin Lie, Lene Grenager, Lasse Thoresen, Sven Lyder Kahrs, Karin Rehnqvist
ACD5137
Aurora Records
October 30, 2026
01:17:50
Digital album, double CD
7090057990624 (digital)
7090057990631 (CD)
NOLFA2604010-160
Propeller Studio, Oslo
Lene Grenager
Mike Hartung
Christian Obermayer
Rune Mortensen
Erik Havnes
Norwegian Arts Council, the Norwegian Society of Composers, the Norwegian Composers' Fund, the Norwegian Academy of Music, and NTNU Department of Music.
Track list
Svarteboka
Unni Løvlid, Marianne Baudouin Lie
1 - Spektraltankar
Composer: Marianne Baudouin Lie and Unni Løvlid
Fengselsdikt
Composer: Lasse Thoresen
Lyrics: Mahvash Sabet. Adapted by Bahiyyihh Nakhjavani, translated from English by Arne Ruste
2 - Visshet
3 - Hallo igjen
4 - Fossefall
5 - Kvart og mikro
Composer: Marianne Baudouin Lie and Unni Løvlid
6 - Jeg har så lun en hytte
Composer: Jon Øyvind Ness
Folk song from Sogn from Unni Løvlid (VITA, Heilo 2005)
Lyrics: Elling Hansen/ Ane Korsnes
7 – Avsky
Composer: Marianne Baudouin Lie and Unni Løvlid
Svarteboka
Composer: Lene Grenager
Lyrics: from Svarteboka frå Aremark, Norway ca. 1750
8 – I. At mane Ont frem Menesker og Qveg
9 – II. For trol og Tuselet
10 – III. Om Hugormens kraft
11 – IV. At stille Ild
12 – V. Om Steene som findes i Svallens mave
13 – Klimpr
Composer: Marianne Baudouin Lie and Unni Løvlid (01:44)
14 - Facklorna
Composer: Sven Lyder Kahrs
Lyrics: Edith Södergran 1892-1923
9 - Eg vender månen, eg vender sola
Composer: Unni Løvlid
Lyrics: Unni Løvlid
Arrangements: Marianne Baudouin Lie and Unni Løvlid
10 - The Dream: Hush - hear me!
Composer: Karin Rehnqvist
// 01:25
// 06:44
// 06:54
// 10:24
// 01:12
// 15:58
// 01:02
// 02:02
// 03:07
// 04:16
// 03:21
// 02:53
// 01:44
// 07:59
// 03:12
// 05:29