Budding Rose

This has been reported elsewhere and it's a bit old news, but for some reason it was never reported here on Brontëblog and it totally deserves a post:

Budding Rose: Where Were Ye All? (2013)
Grappa Music

Budding Rose · Where Were Ye All? · Passion · She Dried Her Tears · The Night Is Darkening · Awaking · True To Myself · Fall Leaves · Tell Me · Lines Composed in a Wood on a Windy Day · Happiest When Most Away ·


"It is so interesting to have this take on the Brontës" words. The songs bring out something which is there, but overlooked and the settings, the vocals and the magical arrangements are really beautiful and thought-provoking". Fiona Talkington, BBC.

Ten years after the first song was written, the debut album of the band and project Budding Rose, "Where Were Ye All?", is finally appearing. This is music marked by stark contrasts. Nineteenth-century poems are united with modern orchestral pop-electronica. Gentle, sensitive passages lead into massive art-rock segments, and there can be a taste of the robot world before the music flows into lovely harmonies played by acoustic instruments. This is content-rich and emotionally catchy art-pop at its best.

Multi-instrumentalist and songwriter Terje Johannesen, from Tønsberg, has been a professional musician for two decades. He has played with artists as diverse as Odd Børretzen/Lars Martin Myhre, Proviant Audio, Adjagas and Levi Henriksen, but is perhaps best known as a highly profiled theatre composer.

Roe Head

The seed for what would become Budding Rose was planted when Terje was commissioned to compose the score for Gard Eisdvold and Hans Petter Blad"s theatrical production of "Roe Head" at Torshov Teateret in 2003. The subject of the play was the lives and writings of the British sisters Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë. The Brontë sisters, who wrote such literary classics as "Wuthering Heights", "Jane Eyre" and "Villette", were also prolific poets in the first half of the 19th century. Johannesen found their work so fascinating and inspiring that he has been setting them to music ever since. After having worked on this project alone for four years, Terje invited Line Horntveth, from the group Jaga Jazzist, to participate as a singer, musician and collaborator, and the duo adopted the name Budding Rose after one of the Brontë sisters" poems.