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Since their self-titled
1985 album entered the national pop-charts in Norway, Reflex has been
considered one of Scandinavia's leading Christian contemporary choirs.
From their modest start as a youth choir in one of Oslo's Lutheran
churches, Reflex would see a steady development towards becoming one of
Christian music's bestsellers and a musical unit with recognition far
outside the Christian circles.
After touring with international artists such as Andraé
Crouch , Richard Smallwood, Bebe & Cece Winans and Adrian
Snell, Reflex found a big audience outside Norway with an album
release, a tour and TV appearance in Denmark in 1989. Back in Norway
Reflex' impressive sales figures attracted the interest of the major
record company BMG. The label signed Reflex for a
Christmas album and "Julenatt" (The night of Christmas)
presented the choir to the mainstream audience through appearances in
Norway's and Denmark's highest rated TV-shows. Turned down by BMG
because of the overt Christian contents of the lyrics, Master
Music released the choir's next album "Denne dagen"
("On That Day") in March 1993. The album would go on to be Norway's best
selling gospel record in 1993.
In the mid-nineties Reflex continued to be a versatile and hard
working group of 35 singers and musicians with the prime goal to reflect
the light of the gospel, but took also on challenges in the secular
music field. In the autumn of 1994 Reflex performed an EBU-concert with
the Norwegian Broadcasting Orchestra with light-music
favourites to be broadcasted to ten European countries, and in the 1995
national competition of the Eurovision Song Contest,
Reflex singers performed in the intermission-act of the contest.
Directed by Martin Alfsen, who also writes much of the choir's
original material, Reflex accepted a request by Adrian Snell
to record the choir parts of his work "City of Peace" in
the beginning of 1995. In December of 1995 Word released
Reflex' first international record "Like A Mighty River",
and the choir took part in the major Mission '96
conference in Utrecht, Holland, performing and leading worship for six
thousand participants from all over Europe. In the autumn of 1996 Reflex
went on a one week tour in Holland with Adrian Snell,
performing a set of their own songs in the opening of the concerts and
then performing the City of Peace-material togheter with Adrian
Snell. Reflex’ second international release, ”The
Light”, came out in continental Europe in the autumn of 1997 on
Holland’s Spark Label by GMI Music Partners. The album
contains a guest appearance by the "king of gospel music", Andraé
Crouch.
In 1999 and 2000 Reflex focused on Norway and Denmark with two
Scandinavian language albums, ”Fellesskap” and the Easter
passion "Seven Days In Jerusalem". However a new
international album is slated for a European in the late summer of 2001,
and tours in Germany and Holland are being planned.
Since
2001, Reflex has focused more on touring in Europe again. In September
2001 the choir toured Germany for the first time and visited eight
cities. The album "Shine On" was released simultaneously. In 2003
Reflex recorded a live worship-album, "Mercy" and the English
language version was released in the early autumn. A group from the
choir performed at the annual Christian Artists seminar in August and in
October the whole choir went on a new eleven day tour to Denmark and
Germany performing in packed halls and churches and receiving favourable
reviews in the press. March 2005 saw the release of the double CD
“The Collection” with 5 new songs and 35 remastered tracks, all in
English, except the choir’s popular arrangement of “Danke”, sung
in German. In the autumn of 2005 Reflex toured Germany for the third
time and the tour also included a festival appearance in Drachten,
Holland. Reflex was one of the headliners on the festival “Gospelkirchentag” in Düsseldorf in September 2006, where they appeared alongside
Kurt Carr, for a sold out concert with 5000 in the audience. Reflex returns to Germany in February 2008 with the new album "Like a flower needs the rain".
Back in Norway the choir made a Country music inspired Norwegian language album in the summer of 2006 that turned out to be a new bestseller and in November the 2-CD Christmas collection "Tid for fred" ("A time for peace") was released. In the fall of 2007 the choir shared the stage again with
Richard Smallwood during the Azusa Norway conference in the Oslo Spektrum Arena.
2008 saw the release of "Like A Flower Needs The Rain", followed by a new tour of Germany. The album draws inspiration from gospel music's roots in country music and negro spirituals and this new musical direction for Reflex, is further developed on the choir's most recent project; "Rett Hjem"("Straight Home") which launches on DVD and CD in September 2010, and includes guest performances by some of Norway's best known artists.
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