Willkommen

I walk wide-eyed into Harpa, the steel honeycomb prism that anyone in Reykjavik recognizes as the most prestigious venue in Iceland. Coming from a Latin American country, everything from the design to the inner workings of a first class arts institution fascinates me.

Some of the pieces were just so beautiful! Harpist Katie Buckley and Frank Aarnink, the percussionist who plays that „stuss“, form the Duo Harpverk – were playing amazing throughout the concert.

Háttatal by Guðmundur managed to give me a glimpse of a world of music that, until now, has been unknown to me and for that, I will be eternally grateful.

Last Wednesday I went to a Nordic Music Days concert starring Siggi String Quartet. They had two guest performers in Fabian Svensson’s „Five Obsessive Movements“, playing a melodica and a toy piano. I had a little chat with the pianist, Erna Vala Arnardóttir.

Have you ever eaten pork while standing besides a pig? Have you ever talked about slaughtering pigs in front of pigs? No? Composer Mathias Monrad Møller was letting people try that at the Reykjavík zoo, it was strange but very, very interesting.

During the world premiere of Gunnar Karel Másson’s piece in Harpa, I wrote this poem.

Styrmir and Hugi discussing the concert of Siggi String Quartet, featuring Ásthildur Ákadóttir, melodica and Erna Vala Arnardóttir, toy piano

Iceland Symphony Orchestra in cooperation with Nordic Music Days 2022 performed five works at Harpa concert hall. Best thing: 25 students of Menntaskóli í tónlist, the Reykjavík Music School, were attending the concert first row. Here is what they wrote…

Marcella Lucatelli started as a classical singer and was interested in making her own staged works, really pushing the visuals and the moments as well as the aesthetics of it. Therefore, she became a composer accidentally.

The Pinquins appear several times in the Nordic Music Days. It is not only music you hear, it is a whole show for your eyes as well – this is art!

Mari Garrigue is playing first in the opening concert of the Nordic Music Days 2022 – what an honour! There she is, with a blue metal case that turns out to be a discarded lantern…

Thor Magnusson and his team at Intelligent Instruments Lab at LHÍ are developing more advanced ways of instrument buildinging, mixed with computer sciences and programming.

„Future Music“ is the exciting field Thor Magnousson is a professor in at the University of Sussex. Here in Reykjavík, he works as a pricipal investigator at the Intelligent Instruments Lab – meaning, he brought this exciting Laboratory to live.

Daniela interviewing instrument designer Mari.

Daniela trying out a reverb instrument for singing voice.

A constant loop of controlled noise and intermittent buzzing lives within a yellow, acoustically-paneled room at Listaháskoli Íslands, Iceland’s arts university. In this laboratory for intelligent instruments, the buzzing is two-fold.

A team of young reporters from Reykjavík will write about Nordic Music Days 2022 in Iceland. Looking forward to meet composers, musicians and instrument inventors from the north!