A passion for music
Based in Oslo, Bislett Vokalensemble combines musical ambitions and friendship.
In March this year we performed Schubert's Winterreise, with the Norwegian premiere of Gregor Meyer's arrangement for choir. In the fall of 2026 we will record several works that the Norwegian composer Kristian Hernes has written especially for us.
In recent years, we have performed Bach's Mass in B minor, Brahms' Ein Deutsches Requiem and Handel's Messiah. This spring we will perform Schubert's Winterreise, with the Norwegian premiere of Gregor Meyer's arrangement for choir. The regular repertoire also includes well-known workers' songs and works by, among others, Edvard Grieg, Ola Gjeilo and Johann Sebastian Bach.
In addition to frequent concerts in Oslo, the choir also regularly gives concerts outside Norway. Over the past fifteen years, the choir has held concerts in Edinburgh, Helsinki, Leipzig, Dresden, Berlin, Bern, London, Paris, Rome and New York. The choir can look back on great concerts in, among others, St. Paul's Berliner Dom, St. John the Divine, St. Sulpice, St. Peter's Church and the Pantheon.
The choir was started in 1995. Gjermund Brenne has been the choir's conductor since 2001.
Bislett vocal ensemble is a member of the Norwegian Choir Association.
Our conductor
Gjermund Brenne has been conductor of the Bislett vocal ensemble (formerly Ullern chamber choir) since 2001, and cantor in Fagerborg church from 2002. In addition to this, Gjermund Brenne is a university lecturer at the Faculty of Congregational Studies, and has previously taught church music at the Norwegian Academy of Music. Gjermund Brenne (b. 1978) is from Sarpsborg and has his education from the Norwegian Academy of Music and the Music Conservatory in Leipzig with studies in organ playing, choir and orchestral conducting. His teachers have been Kåre Nordstoga, Jon Laukvik, Arvid Gast and Horst Neumann. He is also conductor of the Oslo Police Mixed Choir and the project choir Fagerborg Festivalchor. He has performed several times at the Oslo International Church Music Festival and has given concerts in Norway, as well as a number of European countries, both as organist and conductor. Gjermund has also worked on films and TV series and was an organ teacher and instructor on Erik Poppe's film The Invisible and on NRK's film adaptation of Jan Kjærstad's The Conqueror.
