"Hirundo Maris" is singer/harpist Arianna Savall’s debut as a band leader for ECM New Series. The title, the Latin term for “sea swallow” finds the quintet connecting sounds of the Mediterranean with the North Sea. Part early music ensemble, part folk group, the band creates rich instrumental textures colored by Arianna’s sparkling harps and Johansen’s Hardanger fiddle. This recording is a listening experience like none other.

Mystical chants between the visible and the invisible: The great ancient mystery chants of Spain and Norway. Ensemble Hirundo Maris presents the enigmatic chants of the Middle Ages, Spain's El cant de la Sibil.la and Norway's Draumkvedet. Both convey profound, apocalyptic visions of the world's end and the dawn of a new era, traditionally sung on Christmas night. This album evokes the mysteries of winter, blurring the boundaries to the otherworld, transporting the listener to mystical realms.

Hirundo Maris has constantly explored new musical worlds and forms of expression since it was founded in 2009 under the direction of Arianna Savall and Petter Udland Johansen. They are now taking a completely different path with this new project for the label Fuga Libera, which is devoted to a great and wonderful song tradition, the nineteenth- and twentieth-century art song, featuring composers such as Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, Fauré, Debussy, Mompou, Toldrà, García Lorca, de Falla and Grieg – all of whom were so significant for this chamber music genre.