TOKSO

TOKSO means bow in Greek.
TOKSO is a new production which was created and first presented in Norway in the Summer of 2008. It consists of four young musicians and composers, Anne Hytta and Sigrun Eng from Norway , Eleonore Billy from France and Kelly Thoma from Greece, as well as including Kaveh Mahmudiyan from Iran. The repertoire consists exclusively of their own compositions performed with virtuosity and musicality, accenting the freshness of new creation and the freedom of innovation. They make extended use of improvisation as well as of various techniques inspired by the traditions from which they come from, as well as utilizing techniques of their own invention. The Norwegian hardanger fiddle, the cello, the Swedish nyckelharpa and the Cretan lyra are all four played with a bow, but traditionally, they neither share a common repertoire nor are they ever used together in the same orchestra. However, in TOKSO , thanks to the personalities of the musicians involved, with their open attitude to new ideas, the instruments bind together in an astonishingly harmonious way in a group sound of remarkable coherence which immediately impresses the listener with its maturity and depth.
The group performed at MELA festival and Ramme Rokke Festival in Oslo with great success. They are currently preparing their first album which they hope to release in 2009.
Anne Hytta: hardingfele
Sigrun Eng: cello
Eleonore Billy: nyckelharpa
Kelly Thoma: Cretan lyra
Kaveh Mahmudiyan: Iranian percussion

ANNE HYTTA, Hardanger fiddle (Norway)
www.myspace.com/annehytta
Anne Hytta (born 1974) is among the foremost performers of the Hardanger violin, a special fiddle with sympathetic strings and its own repertoire of traditional tunes. In 2006 and 2007 Anne Hytta received the Government Grants for younger artists, and she receives the Government Grants for composers in 2009.
Her solo album "dag, kveld, natt" ("day, evening, night") is an album containing three landscapes of sonorous sounds from the Hardanger violin. The bright light - day, the shadows - evening, and the dark - night, is represented on the record through three different ways of tuning the fiddle, which illuminate different harmonies and sounds.
Anne Hytta states about her solo album "dag, kveld, natt": The rich, rasping, intense timbre of the Hardanger fiddle has always attracted me. Norwegian country airs as I have learned to play them have strictly defined structures. However, to a certain extent at minimalist level you are free to vary motifs and to add colour through ornamentation, and I think it these elements that have made me feel that playing airs is a natural mode of musical expression for me. I like the music, and I like performing it in my own way.
She received the Norwegian Folk Music Award for best solo album in 2006.
Anne writes and performs music with the trio Slagr. In addition to herself, Sigrun Eng plays the cello and Amund Sjolie Sveen plays vibraphone. Slagr released their Debut Album "Solaris" November 2007 to great reviews.
She is also a member of SYM with French nyckelharpist Eleonore Billy and English nyckelharpist Clare Salaman. They released their debut album "Symbiosis" spring 2008 on Taith Records.
She is a member of the early music ensembles Kalenda Maya and Camelias Blancas , and she is one of three soloist in the concert "Greatest Girls of Norway" with Aase Teigland and Synnove S. Bjorset.

SIGRUN ENG , Cello (Norway)
www.myspace.com/sigruneng

Sigrun Eng (b. 1977 in Lillehammer, Norway) is a cellist of unusual qualities. Being a classically trained cellist, she also performs improvised music, jazz, and folk music from different parts of the world. Her education is from the Norwegian Academy of Music, where she studied classical cello and jazz improvisation, and from Hochschule für Musik in Dresden, Germany, where she studied classical cello.
She has taken part in masterclasses and workshops with as different musicians as f.ex. Pieter Wispelwey (cello), Richie Beirach (jazz improvisation), Arve Henriksen (jazz/free improvisation), Pandit Suresh Talwalkar (Indian music), and Shivkumar Sharma (Indian music).
Among her projects, Slagr with hardanger violinist Anne Hytta and vibraphonist Amund S. Sveen is of main importance. Their music is contemporary, but still strongly influenced by Norwegian traditional music. Through Anne Hytta, Sigrun Eng has been introduced to musicians such as the Balouchan Benju player Abdulrahman Surizehi (Surizehi/Hytta/Eng trio), the Iranian Oud player Shahram Gholami (Gholami/Eng duo) and the musicians of Tokso.
Eng's clean, non-vibrato style has proved suitable for folk music projects, as well as for jazz ensembles such as Soyr, Mini Macro Ensemble and Froy Aagre/Offbeat.
Discography:
Slagr: Solaris (2007)
Anders Gronseth/Mini Macro Ensemble (2008)
Adeaforon: Adeaforon (2009)
as well as several studio jobs including the sound tracks to the Norwegian films Uro, O'Horten and The