Mari Samuelsen: Moonlight – New Single

Mari Samuelsen’s new single, Moonlight, is set for release on 1 May 2020. Written especially for the Norwegian violinist, with accompaniment by string orchestra and piano, this reworking of the first movement of Beethoven’s “Moonlight” Sonata is being issued to coincide with the BEETHOVEN 2020 anniversary year. A video filmed during the recording sessions will be released a few days later, on 4 May. Subscribers to Apple Music however, get an exclusive preview of the video from 1 May.

“When I was choosing a piece of music for this anniversary,” says Mari Samuelsen, “it didn’t matter whether it was written for violin, cello or piano. I simply felt the urge to do the ‘Moonlight’ Sonata. It’s so beautiful in a unique way: clean, raw, at the same time near but distant. It’s timeless and eternal, and I felt an immediate need to do it my way, with my instrument.”

Mari Samuelsen has always enjoyed the challenge of rethinking familiar works – as can be heard in the new interpretations of music by Bach, Jóhannsson and Max Richter on Mari, her debut DG album. The ever popular “Moonlight” Sonata, however, holds a particularly special place in her heart.

“When listening to the ‘Moonlight Sonata’,” she explains, “I feel my soul getting detoxified. It’s like an internal cleansing of my emotional and mental system, a dream or a fantasy where you’re invited into a different world for some five minutes. I think it’s impossible to define if it’s dark or light. It gives me a feeling of hope and enlightenment, and of reflection and consciousness.”

Mari Samuelsen has been hailed as “a new kind of classical star” (Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung). She follows her own path, creating imaginative, unconventional programmes that speak to the Zeitgeist, and performing them with a unique eloquence of expression. Her original approach to classical music has thrilled audiences not only at the world’s most prestigious venues –New York’s Carnegie Hall, the Hollywood Bowl, Paris’s Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, the Berlin Konzerthaus, and so on – but also in more unusual settings, including the Montreux Jazz Festival and Beijing’s Forbidden City. She has collaborated on projects with artists such as Jeff Mills, Dubfire and  Philipp Geist, as well as working on a regular basis with composer Max Richter, whom she recently joined at the Barbican in London for the world premiere of Voices. Richter’s latest large-scale work is written for a reimagined string orchestra dominated by the low frequencies of cellos and basses, but with a key role for solo violin – performed, of course, by Mari Samuelsen.