What happens when traditional Sami music meets mainstream western sacred music? This is the question Cantus meets head-on in Spes. Under the direction of its conductor Tove Ramlo-Ystad, and in collaboration with composer and musician Frode Fjellheim, the choir explores a new and little-known musical world, a world with a wide range of emotions: sorrow, joy and vulnerability. Through these songs, sounds and musical forms - some familiar, others scarcely known - Cantus challenges both itself and its audience with a repertoire which, while being striking in its variety, is united in one thing: its expression of hope in the music by Frode Fjellheim, Mia Makaroff, Eriks Esenvalds, Eva Ugalde, Ko Matsushita, Knut Nystedt, Franz Xaver Biebl and Kim André Arnesen.

Xhosa Cole is a name that has been bandied about for the best part of a decade now. After winning the BBC Young Jazz Musician of the Year in 2018, it felt like everyone was waiting for the contemporary jazz artist to live up to his hype, or implode because of it. With each new album Cole has grown in confidence as a player and songwriter. Now, on his third album – a love letter and reinterpretation of works by musical idol, Thelonious Monk – we’re starting to see the fruition of that praise and work ethic paying off.