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HEAVEN-HAVEN AT LØVE'S BOOK CAFÉ
On December 8, you have one last chance to experience our acclaimed cabaret concert Heaven-Haven with Ursula Andkjær Olsen before she takes a break in 2011.
At Løve's Book Café, we perform a small intimate version of Heaven-Haven, where the orchestra consists of Anna Klett on clarinet, Jesper Egelund on stringed instruments and vocals, Frans Hansen on percussion.


>> Løve's home page
Heaven-Haven, Wednesday 8th December at. 20, Løve's Book Café, Vesterbrogade 97 b, Copenhagen V


LOTTE ANKER'S WHAT RIVER ENSEMBLE AT WUNDERGRUND AND HUDDERSFIELD FESTIVAL
A leading figure at the Danish impro stage, saxophonist Lotte Anker, has handpicked an all-star team of international musicians. Meet beside Lotte Anker the legendary electronic musician Ikue Mori; the British extreme vocalist Phil Minton; cutting edge drummer Chris Cutler; the Irish world star Garth Knox on viola; the booming Norwegian guitarist Kim Myhre, and our two FIGURA musicians Anna Klett and Jesper Egelund.

>> See more at Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival


HEAVEN-HAVEN AT THE FESTIVAL KBH LÆSER
A great reunion with our cabaret concert Heaven-Haven.
The concert brings together three elements: Peter Bruun songs for Manley Hopkins' stormy and sensuous poetry, music for Ursula Andkjær Olsen's performance of her own just as sensual and yet very attentive and fleshly poetry and music created together with Yasar Tas.
The concert shows only once in Theatre ZeBU's beautiful new auditorium, and the six performers this time have a huge reddish brown chest of drawers with 100 drawers as background.
Wednesday 10th November 8pm, Theatre ZeBU, Øresundsvej 4, Copenhagen S

NARCISSUS & ECHO
Use the autumn holiday to invite children and grandchildren for an opera for young people from 10 years - full of surprises, circus and magic tricks.

Jakob Bloch Jespersen, Jesper Egelund, Mathias Hedegaard, Frans Hansen og Anna Klett in Narcissus & Echo. Photo: Henrik Bjerregrav
FIGURA is along the Jyske Opera ready with a brand new children's opera with music by Peter Bruun and staging of Anne Barslev.

On stage is tenor Mathias Hedegaard as the boy Narcissus who so wish to compose his own music. Bass-baritone Jakob Bloch Jespersen is the Master, who shows him how, and takes him to a magic circus universe where Echo in the person of mezzo-soprano Helene Gjerris anxiously is waiting for him. FIGURA’s three musicians Frans Hansen on percussion and saw, Anna Klett on clarinet and Jesper Egelund on bass and ukulele is as always on stage. This time in Nicolai Spangaa’s fantastic costumes, and they certainly have a few tricks and extra cards up there sleeves.

Peter Bruun’s music in the opera Narcissus & Echo reflects history's many roads and detours. The music is a mixture of complex rhythms, harmonies and beautiful melody lines, reflecting the boy Narcissus' feelings and experiences and takes us on the boy's road to his own sound.

Narcissus & Echo has world premiere in: Aarhus Musikhus, The Small Hall, October 22 at. 17pm

Here it plays to the 26th October.

Then take the show on the nationwide tour that ends with 8 performances at Takkelloftet, The Royal Opera in Copenhagen, 16th-19th November.


DANISH COMPOSERS SOCIETY MUSICIAN AWARD 2010
FIGURA’s Helene Gjerris is this year's recipient of DKFs Musician Award. The Musician Award was presented at the Association's harvest festival on Friday 8th October, when the composer Peter Bruun motivated the price with among others the following words: Last we saw her together with her ensemble FIGURA in the title role in the performance "4 angles on Medea," where she once again helped to push the boundaries of music dramatic expression.
Helene Gjerris. Foto: Ditte Valente
I do not think it is luck, but skill, which means that she seems to attract interesting, innovative and relevant projects. Helene Gjerris is in the good, exciting stuff. It is not because she is picky and exclusive, quite the contrary. She is hardworking and not afraid to take on a task. But she has from the beginning as a singer wanted to collaborate with composers and help to create and experiment. And because of her talent, her diligence and her skill she makes the things that she makes to something special.



SMALL COMPOSERS IN GENTOFTE
In September FIGURA did Small Composers at Gentofte Culture Schools. Five classes worked two days with drawing, playing, poetry and narrating music together with Jesper Egelund and Peter Bruun. The process culminated in a concert at the Culture School, where 100 children could hear some of their own compositions played by Torben Snekkestad, Frans Hansen, and Jesper Egelund.




4 Angles on Medea at Suså Festival ’10

Now is your chance to take back our latest opera with music by Steingrimur Rohloff, Henrik Hellstenius, Malin Bång and Nicolai Worsaae. Lars Kaalund has staged and Peter Laugesen led the pen.

Starring: Helene Gjerris, Jakob Bloch Jespersen, Andreas Landin, Aileen Itani, Anna Klett, Jesper Egelund, Frans Hansen.

4 Angles on Medea plays on Suså Festival in Næstved Friday 3rd of September at 20 pm in Ny Ridehus at The Culture Barracks of Grønnegade, and tickets can be purchased here
You can read more about 
4 Angles on Medea here 


The press wrote: 

Henrik Friis, Politiken: 'Medea' is a heady and timely road movie about our self-indulgent world. 
 They do surprisingly well, with deeply poetic front and rear air light, clear, bright tones and a ultra tight video projection of Medea’s singing face, it is a pure pleasure. 
Helene Gjerris - which like the rest of Figura handles music and song with convincing authority sensual and thought provoking show.

Henrik Lyding, Jyllands Posten: On stage Helene Gjerris burns through clearly as Medea with a flame thrower voice and dramatic presence opposite Jakob Bloch Jespersen's brutal Jason.

Anne Middelboe Christensen Information: Helene Gjerris is the queen of modern Danish mezzolines. She sings so you understand every word. She frames tones, so you get curious. And she is so slender that the eye refuses to be satisfied.



Here you can experience FIGURA in the season of 2010-11

Narcissus & Echo - co-production with Den Jyske Opera
Opera for children with music by Peter Bruun and staging by Anne Barslev. World premiere in the Concert Hall in Aarhus and tour in October and November.



Wundergrund Festival
FIGURA plays at the festival in November

Copenhagen Reads – København Læser
Heaven-Haven with Ursula Andkjær Olsen at the Festival Copenhagen Reads at The ZeBU Theatre in November

Huddersfield Festival
FIGURA plays at the festival in November with Lotte Anker's What River Ensemble

FIGURA Festspiele 2011
Our own festival with lots of new music in January.

The Motion Demon
Our next big production with music by Steingrimur Rohloff, text of Sjón and staging of Rolf Heim in March and April at the Copenhagen Music Theatre.



AM I NOT DON QUIXOTE? 

Our raving mad and funny family show was for the first time to be experienced outdoors at the Copenhagen Opera Festival 2010, which successfully took place around Copenhagen. Now the show keeps a well-deserved break, but don’t miss the opportunity to experience it again in the spring of 2011.

Modern cabaret moods with soprano Signe Asmussen.
In Derek Bermel’s Cabaret Songs the modern compositional music meets up with the cabaret- and the jazz tradition. Signe Asmussen's great versatility makes her an ideal interpreter.

NEWS FROM URSULA ANDKJÆR OLSEN
The FIGURA poet has made a new masterpiece - this time as a literary gardener with sister Julie Andkjær Olsen. Together they have written, respectively, and embroidered the poem book "Have og helvede” (Garden and hell)

FIGURA visits Literature Festival
Music and poetry are the headlines when FIGURA is playing their poetic concerts. At the end of July FIGURA is visiting the literature festival at The Lion’s Book Café where Ursula Andkjaer Olsen will be reading her fiddling texts out loud, accompanied by Frans Hansen on percussion.

In 2008 Ursula Andkjaer Olsen became a member of FIGURA Ensemble. In recognition of her latest book Havet er en scene (The ocean is a stage) she was awarded by the National Arts Foundation Literature Committee. Furthermore she was nominated for the Nordic Council's Literature Prize 2009 and received The Readers Book Prize 2009. 

The poetic concert will take place Friday July 31. 21:00 pm in The Lion’s Book Café, Vesterbrogade 97b/Matthaeusgade 46, 1620 Copenhagen V.

Summer concert by the Limestone Quarry
FIGURA Ensemble, fronting mezzo-soprano Helene Gerris and bass baritone Jacob Bloch Jespersen, performs at a summer concert in Stevns. At this concert FIGURA Ensemble is challenging the acoustics in the unconventional concert hall, The Pyramid, and the audience with their musicality and exciting sounds.

FIGURA Ensemble honored with the Reumert Prize
April the 26th FIGURA Ensemble received the most prestigious Danish Theatre Award, The Reumert Prize for the Best Children Theatre of the Year, 2009.
The awarded play is The Story of a Mother, a co-production between Corona La Balance and FIGURA Ensemble, where H.C. Andersen’s moving story is being told through modern music theatre with contemporary music composed by Steingrímur Rohloff.

SPRING Festival 09 - a festival for children’s theatre
This week The Story of a Mother will be performed at this year SPRING Festival - a festival for children’s theatre. Besides a wealth of both Daish and foreign performances, FIGURA and Corona La Balance’s Reumert-praised performance The Story of a Mother can be (re) experienced, this Thursday the 14th at 10 am and again at 7 pm at the Dance Scene; Østerbro.

More festivals 
FIGURA’s new play Am I not Don Quixote? was performed four times at the world's largest children's theatre festival 2009 held in Ballerup. 
At the SPOR festival in Aarhus, FIGURA world premiered a piece by the composer Christian Winther Christensen, Documentation, and performed the micro-opera TRIUMPH by Signe Klejs and Niels Rønsholdt. 

Small Composers is a big hit
In 2005 the project Small Composers began. It is workshop where schoolchildren try working as real composers. The first season culminated in a series of concerts in which the South Jutland Symphony Orchestra premiered the music composed by children around the age of ten in collaboration with the composer Peter Bruun. 

Since then FIGURA Ensemble has been touring schools in Denmark with Small Composers. The close collaboration between children and professional musicians has turned out to be a big hit. During Spring/Summer 2009 children from several schools has the opportunity to try out the art of composing.