“Eirik Hegdal and Alpaca Ensemble have several collaborative projects behind them, including Tapet Tapet! which got several top score reviews, and Mekatonia from 2012 (record from 2017) – a most impressive co-production with Cirka Teater during the Trondheim Chamber Music Festival. The Sky Open Twice is the ensemble’s eleventh album and is a commissioned work by Eirik Hegdal. Hegdal invited the young and creative vocalist Thea Ellingsen Grant to the project. (Among other things known from the band JUNO.) Grant has written colourful and vivid lyrics to the music. The album is a playful creation of pre-produced pop-beats / backing tracks, free improvisation, contemporary music and jazz.” (Particular Recordings Collective)

@ Alpaca Ensemble

“Atlantis, Utopia and Ulvedrømmer is a project where I play commissioned works for solo cello and my own voice, by composers Maja Ratkje, Stine Sørlie, Eirik Hegdal, Lene Grenager and Ellen Lindquist. These works explore speech and the singing voice as an extension of the instrument’s sound world and expression. The cello is the instrument that may be closest to the voice, and some works have been composed using this, but the fact that it is the cellist’s own voice used for coloring is unusual and creates an unexpected closeness in the expression. The goal is not to make the song appear as a beautiful song, but it creates its own sound in interaction with the cello and can be both singing, speaking, whistling and sounds. The project was started in connection with the Norwegian composer’s association’s 100th anniversary, and is further developed with new commissioning works, a CD recording and launch tour in the fall of 2020.” (Marianne Baudouin Lie)

@ Particular Recordings