NDR Kammerorchester / Daníel Bjarnason
Into Iceland Festival / Please note the change of performers!
Among the most lasting impressions that Iceland left in Europe’s collective aural memory is their shout of encouragement at the 2016 European Football Championship: two firm claps and then a loud chorus of »Hu!«. This was a nation with a population of just 300,000 laying claim to a place in Europe’s premier league, as it were. And not only where soccer is concerned: Icelandic music is likewise making quite a name for itself! Although Daníel Bjarnason, conductor and composer, had to regretfully cancel his participation in this concert, the evening remains an excursion to the pulsing musical world of the island. Jonathan Stockhammer replaces Bjarnason as conductor and the programme remains the same.
Stockhammer made his breakthrough with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and since then has been regarded as one of the leading lights of today’s contemporary music scene. Under his baton, cellist Sæunn Thorsteinsdóttir and the NDR Kammerorchester play works by Daníel Bjarnason, Anna Thórvaldsdóttir and other Icelandic composers as part of the »Into Iceland« festival.
The Icelandic music scene scene has a small geographic base, it’s true, but it also has a global artistic horizon. Daníel Bjarnson’s »Over Light Earth« was written to a commission from Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra and takes its inspiration from paintings of the New York School, in particular from Mark Rothko and Jackson Pollock.
Haukur Tómasson, on the other hand, uses sources from Icelandic folk music, but reworks the folk song material to create iridescent avant-garde soundscapes.
Most Icelandic composers cannot escape the special aura of the country and the overwhelming impressions of their native landscape – nor do they want to. The covers of their CDs tend to show them as solitary figures in the midst of the grandeur of nature, and many of their works conjure up different nature moods, as well as loneliness and melancholy. A typical example of this special Iceland feeling is the music of Anna Thórvaldsdóttir: the title of her octet »Ró« (Tranquillity) has programmatic character.
Performers
NDR Kammerorchester
Sæunn Thorsteinsdóttir violoncello
conductor Jonathan Stockhammer
Programme
Anna Thorvaldsdottir
Ró
Haukur Tómasson
Stemma
Atli Ingólfsson
Object of Terror
Páll Ragner Pálsson
Quake für Violoncello und Kammerorchester / Uraufführung, Auftragswerk des NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchesters
Daníel Bjarnason
Over Light Earth