Nordic Voices are back in Edinburgh after 30 years!

Thu 20 Aug 2026 AT 2:30PM

Edinburgh New Town Church
13 George St Edinburgh

Nordic Voices, the world famous Norwegian a cappella sextet return to Edinburgh after 30 years.

https://www.thequeenshall.net/whats-on/maid-norway-queen-scots-tickets-edinburgh

Nordic Voices are a six-voice a cappella group that has been making waves not only in Norway, but in places as far afield as South Africa, Taiwan, Bolivia and USA.

Formed in 1996, Nordic Voices comprises six graduates from the Norwegian Academy of Music and the Norwegian Academy of Opera, who, in addition to their singing backgrounds, have a broad range of experience from choral conducting to teacher training and composition. It is perhaps this range of interests that leads them to explore a wider than usual spectrum of musical expression, from plainchant to new works commissioned from leading Norwegian composers; from the most sacred of religious texts to the strongly secular.

Presented by McFarlane Productions

There is something rather special about coming to Edinburgh in 2026. For Nordic Voices, this is not simply another concert abroad. In a way, we are coming home. It was here in Edinburgh, thirty years ago, that Nordic Voices really began. In 1996, six young Norwegian singers came to Scotland with plenty of enthusiasm, a great deal of music – and, as yet, no proper name. Ian McFarlane believed in us, encouraged us, and gave us the name Nordic Voices. At the time, we thought it sounded rather grand. Perhaps even a little too grand for six young singers just starting out. We tried to think of something better. But – we never did. So here we are, thirty years later: still Nordic Voices, still singing together, and returning to the city where the adventure began. For this concert, we have also opened a musical door that has been closed for a very long time. Some of the repertoire was part of our earliest years as an ensemble – music we have not performed since those first days thirty years ago. Returning to it now feels a little like meeting our younger selves: the notes are familiar, but the singers have travelled quite a distance since then. And there could hardly be a more fitting occasion for our return. THE MAID OF NORWAY – A QUEEN OF SCOTS, 1286–90 marks the 740th anniversary of the accession of Margaret, Maid of Norway, Queen of Scots – the Norwegian princess whose short life became an extraordinary link between the histories of Scotland and Norway. The relationship between our two countries stretches far beyond one young medieval queen. For centuries, people, stories, music and traditions have travelled back and forth across the North Sea. This program explores some of those connections, bringing together Norwegian and Scottish history through music. And for one member of Nordic Voices, that journey across the North Sea is also part of her own family story. During the Second World War, when Norwegian naval forces were stationed in Scotland, a young Norwegian man named Nils met a young woman from Dundee: Anne Wallace. They fell in love, and after the war their story continued in Norway. Anne Wallace became the grandmother of one of Nordic Voices’ sopranos. So, more than seven centuries after a Norwegian girl became Queen of Scots, and eighty years after a Scottish girl from Dundee fell in love with a Norwegian sailor, another small Norwegian-Scottish story brings us back across the North Sea. Thirty years after Nordic Voices found its name in Edinburgh, we are delighted to return – with music from our beginnings, music connecting our two countries, and rather more life experience than we had in 1996. And perhaps Ian McFarlane was right about the name after all.