John Andrew Wilhite - Bristol Silence (2LP)

An orchestra that played for Nazis. A silence that lasted for generations. A work that lets this silence speak, sing, and scream. Motvind Records presents John Andrew Wilhite’s monumental piece, Bristol Silence, written for the Motvind Festival and premiered at Hotel Bristol in Oslo in the summer of 2023. In this work Bristol Silence, the double bassist and composer brings to light a chapter of Norwegian music history that has remained in the shadows. Wilhite writes:

Having known that Nazi officers lived in and around Oslo’s Hotel Bristol during occupation of Norway, and that the house band “Bristolorkestret” later became the Norwegian Radio Orchestra– an central organ for Norway’s national musical identity still today– I was walking down Rosenkrantz’ gate and suddenly wondered if there was a connection between the two facts. There was.

But the piece became something much more than a work “about” the Bristol Orchestra and the silence surrounding their past; a kind of vertigo coming over me as soon as I started to see all the negative spaces spun out around this central nerve. The silence of the complicit and the “apolitical”, the silence of the repressed and the imprisoned, the silence of the absent and the murdered, the silence of the conspirator and of resistance, of refusal.

Known to Motvind Records listeners as the bassist in Andreas Røysum Ensemble and for a fine duo album with Katt Hernandez, as well as collaborations with brilliant musicians such as Derek Baron and Elliott Sharp, Wilhite is also one of the most exciting and interesting young composers in Scandinavia today. His works have been performed everywhere from big stages like The Norwegian National Opera to experimental jazz venues like Café Oto. This is Wilhite’s first album as a bandleader - and what a debut it is! Bristol Silence has already been nominated for multiple awards and we are proud to present this work of intricate layers, tightly interwoven. The music is performed with great energy and a profound sense of meaning.

The piece is written for an ensemble with the same instrumentation as the original Bristol Orchestra. And it’s a brilliant ensemble. Vocalists Sofia Jernberg and Robin Steitz, regularsboth on huge opera stages and in experimental music venues, complement each other masterfully here. The horn section - Erik Kimestad Pedersen, Klaus Ellerhusen Holm, Andreas Røysum, and Torben Snekkestad - handles material that shifts between grotesque big-band swing, structure-based noise sequences, and intricate melodic lines. String players Hans P. Kjorstad, Ferdinand Bergstrøm, and composer (and director!) John Andrew Wilhite pluck, bow, and carve. The stellar pianist Ayumi Tanaka, as always, dazzles with an exquisitely subtle touch— and at one point opens up the abyss with one of the wildest solos we’ve ever heard. And the multifaceted nature of this record calls for two very different drummers: Andreas Winther on drum kit, time-keeping, and texture, and Ane Marthe Sørlien Holen on grand percussive gestures and sophisticated colorations.

The album opens with the music of the Bristol Orchestra itself, but it is “the silence behind the music” that remains the focus. Derek Baron articulates this well in his accompanying essay, where the nuance of the work’s meaning comes through: The question is not only “why has no one spoken about the fact that the first conductor of the Norwegian Radio Orchestra toured with German ensembles for German soldiers?” but also about all that cannot be said or shown. Was there not also a resistance fighter within the ensemble? In this first movement, the music from the old Bristol records is gradually stripped away until only the surface noise remains. Finally, the ensemble plays this silence, harmonizing and amplifying it.

The second track, Vår kveld, is inspired by the poem Vårkveld (Spring Evening) by Gunvor Hofmo A depiction of deep sorrow, Hofmo wrote it in the spring of 1943, only months after her closest friend and lover, the Austrian-Jewish writer and refugee Ruth Maier, was arrested by Norwegian police and deported to Auschwitz. This movement conveys not only the silence surrounding Norwegian collaboration with the occupying forces but also the terrible loneliness of losing the one you love. The duet between the vocalists underscores this pain, ending with a voice crying out - without receiving an answer.

Stumpiano is inspired by the story of the “stumpiano” —a piano without strings, only the hammer mechanism— given to the renowned pianist Robert Riefling while he was imprisoned for helping Jews escape to Sweden. This represents another kind of silence: strike, refusal, secret resistance. Riefling’s quiet defiance beyond the concert stage makes the irony of the stumpiano even sharper. Here, it becomes a symbol of resistance through mute action.

The movement As Many Sighs focuses on the performer. The text comes from Tosca, staged by the Deutsches Theater in Oslo in October 1942, just a month before Ruth Maier was deported. An entertaining song here suddenly opens up to a horrific realization: “These golden lamps are killing me!” Standing on stage, staring straight into the spotlights, the performers question if they are entertainers or prisoners. How fine could that line really be?

In Every Morning, Brecht’s ironic poem from Hollywood Elegies is set in tribute to Henry Gleditsch, the theater director at Trøndelag Teater, where Bristol Silence was also performed. Gleditsch wrote a play satirizing Norwegian businessmen who grew rich by collaborating with the Nazis. He was executed in the forest outside Trondheim - also in October 1942.

But Your Eyes Said is inspired by “Your mouth says no no (but your eyes say yes)” by Joseph Santly, sung during the war by Arne Sveen – the Bristol Orchestra’s vocalist– who was also a member of the Norwegian resistance. The song Sveen sang might, in another context, have sounded like a lewd, even creepy, Tin Pan Alley cliché, but here it is turned on its head: while he sang for the dinner guests, he was memorizing plans to sabotage the railway. In this movement, the phrase “Your mouth said… But your eyes said… But your hands said…” repeats, but the answers never come. The voice rises by a half step, only to be interrupted by the ensemble’s vague, toneless noise. Sometimes, what is left unsaid means the most.

The final movement, Every Last Breath, is built around a poem by Fred Moten: Every last breath / We want to breathe somebody / So beautiful in refusing. Here, at last, a kind of statement emerges from the silence - an agitation, a disturbance. It is not an answer, far less an absolution, but a wounded attempt at articulated intent. This is the power of art - it does not simplify but allows great questions to remain in all their complexity. Yet it demands that we act and take responsibility.

Bristol Silence, the concert work, is now released as an album, with music accompanied by an essay by Derek Baron and visual material by Gregory Blake, who has reworked historical images of Hotel Bristol to remove all human figures - an echo of the musical concept. The album also includes the libretto, delving into the layers of meaning and reference within the work.

It is a great pleasure to present a work that speaks to what a society is. This is not a piece about the past - but about the silent lines that stretch from it, all the way into our own time.

Cat.nr: MOT34LP
Release date: May 8th 2025

Music composed by John Andrew Wilhite

Track list:

A1: Bristol Silence (5:11), A2: Vår kveld (11:31)

B1: Stumpiano (2:00), B2: As Many Sighs I (4:28), B3: Intermezzo (4:43)

C1: As Many Sighs II (12:35), C2: Every Morning (4:00)

D1: But Your Eyes Said (6:55), D2: Every Last Breath (7:37)

Ensemble:
Sofia Jernberg, soprano
Robin Steitz, soprano
Erik Kimestad Pedersen, trumpet
Klaus Ellerhusen Holm, alto saxophone & clarinet
Andreas Røysum, clarinet & flute
Torben Snekkestad, tenor saxophone
Hans P. Kjorstad, violin
Ferdinand Bergstrøm, guitar
Ayumi Tanaka, piano
Andreas Skår Winther, drums
Ane Marthe Sørlien Holen, percussion
John Andrew Wilhite, conducting & double bass

Texts assembled by John Andrew Wilhite with Finn Iunker, with a contribution from Fred Moten

Recorded at Athletic Sound by Dag Erik Johansen, August 2024
Mix: Dag Erik Johansen at Athletic Sound, November 2024
Master: Helge Sten at Audio Virus Lab, January 2025

Cover design: Greyory Blake
Album notes: Derek Baron
Translation of album notes: Finn Iunker