The O/Modernt team, led by director Hugo Ticciati, are a group of highly skilled, young musicians from around Europe. As the name suggests, meaning “Un/Modern” in Swedish, Hugo and friends use the O/Modernt project to delve into the comparison of music across time, from archaic composition to modern culture; Hugo invests his energy into creating not only extraordinary performances, but also eclectic programmes that have been known to include everything from Eastern Europe’s overtone singing to more western jazz and rap music.

From The Ground Up is no exception. O/Modernt explore the concept of the Chaconne through time, exploring how the form changed as it travelled from South America to Spain, and further into Europe. In combining the works of Bach and Purcell with Baba Israel’s beat poetry, Sam West’s exquisite performances of Shakespearean text and some almost existential forms of improvisation, O/Modernt give any listener the chance to ‘Breathe again’.

“A compelling and uncategorisable album – and equally as gripping a journey.” writes Martin Cullingford for Gramophone. “It is, as that list suggests, a gloriously (and gloriously unlikely) collaborative achievement.”

From The Ground Up: The Chaconne was released in 2018 on the Signum record label, and was awarded the Gramophone Classical Music Concept Album Award in 2020.